Current Events
And why don't people talking about the theory that the big gap between the payroll survey and the household survey since 2000 is due to the rising number of the self-employed mention the household survey estimates of the self-employed? The household survey asks people if they are self-employed. And the household-survey estimate of the numbers of the self-employed has risen by only 330,000 (from 9.14 to 9.48 million) since January 2001--only a small fraction of the 2.6 million difference between the payroll survey trend and the household survey trend. Isn't it worth pointing out that the household survey itself lends no support to the theory that changes in self-employment are an important factor in understanding the current labor market?
