Unemployment data for the United States was recently published showing somewhere in the range of 4.1% unemployment. I guess this is supposed to make people feel reasonably positive that 95.9 in 100 people of working age in America have a job. Excellent. But what does it really mean? How does it align with our reality as an individual, a family, a group, town, region, state, area, market, segment, category, industry? What the numbers don’t show is how well people are thriving or how much they may be suffering. So in this analysis and reading of data we must leave room for critical thinking.
Data is data. Macro data has a wide filter. It doesn’t capture the fine stuff. So let’s look deeper; let’s look at what I am calling “the suffering index.”
What is this index? Well, I made it up. It’s a qualitative measure within the unemployment index to assess how well I think people and businesses are doing financially, physically, emotionally, and what they are experiencing in terms of buying power, dissonance, negotiations.
Just because the government publishes a statistic that implies we should feel good, doesn’t mean we should ignore what the eye sees, ears hear, mind captures, checkbook says, buying power creates. Employment is one measure. How well it facilitates life is another measure.
From my observation, my own experience, the business of life, talks with peers, company owners, clients, my adult children, and others, the suffering index has increased steadily the last 2 years. It’s obvious. I am not the only person that sees it this way.
I am grateful to be employed as a business owner and professional. I have some options, I have work. I am not complaining. I am responsible to shape my reality, keep my head up, be resilient, move forward one day at a time. But running the business now compared to prior to all the years prior to 2020 is not the same. Running the business in 2024 vs 2022 is not the same. Change always happens. Regulation is greater. Taxation is higher. Buying power is decreased. Inflation is still not under control (which is a problem created by a government and up to them to solve.) Reluctance to do deals is higher than prior. Commercial building is very slow. People are not returning to offices and will not all do so unless most companies mandate. That is unlikely and would lead to additional shifts, retirements, repurposing.
There’s an old phrase, “figures don’t lie by liars figure.” And another, “If you torture the data long enough it will tell you exactly what you want it to.”
Unemployment measures matter to some degree at the macro level in terms of trending. But I don’t need to see them. It doesn’t matter to anyone other than the government, speculators or trend followers. I prefer to judge reality on my own, based on my observation, experience, and realm of influence.
I know how to suffer well. I can be joyful in lack or in plenty, most of the time. It’s a mindset. I know when suffering is increased or decreased. I know how to be resilient based on long experience in the game of life and business.
But the suffering index is high right now. This is based on what I “feel and see.”
And that’s alright. It’s my index. I have no other data to back it up. It’s based on thousands of inputs over thousands of days.
How are you?
JOHN L WHEATON BLOG 