>It hasn't fallen at all. In April, the U.S. employment/population ratio was >64.2%, off slightly from its all-time high of 64.5% in January, but up from >its 61.3% level at the employment trough in Feb 92, and above its earlier >cyclical peak of 63.1% in Mar 90. > >If you adjusted for the 1.8 million people behind bars in this lovely >country, though, it would knock about 0.5 percentage points off the EPR. > >Doug So how does the U.S. look compared to other OECD countries if you count institutionalized adults as part of the population? Can one also account for the role of the military? And has anyone tried to control for interest rates in doing such a comparison? Such a comparison might shed some light on whether European unemployment is in fact due to the dread specter of social democracy. -bob ------------------------------- Robert Naiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Preamble Center 1737 21st NW Washington, DC 20009 phone: 202-265-3263 fax: 202-265-3647 http://www.preamble.org/ -------------------------------