6 Percent Or 12? Will The Real Unemployment Rate Please Stand Up?
Wednesday, September 10, 2014 - 19:50
in Mathematics & Economics
The Obama administration recently began claiming that the unemployment rate had dropped to 6.1 percent, evidence that its economic policies were working. Yet over 90 Americans of working age are unemployed or working at low paying jobs outside their fields. How can they both be correct? Estimating the unemployment rate has become more difficult than in the past - because the definition of unemployment has changed and so has the design of metrics to track it. Millions of people cannot get unemployment benefits because they have been out of work too long, for example. To the government, that means they are not unemployed, even though they clearly are. Others have taken part-time jobs. read more