Well, there are also about 85,000 people in mental hospitals (down from
558,000 in 1955), and I'm sure they're part of the total.
Joel Blau
Eugene Coyle wrote:
Thanks for this, and for your occasional reminders about this.
Could you clarify, or perhaps speculate, how things would change, or
not, if the military were included, along with the "institutional
population"? What exactly is the non-institutional population?
Prisoners for sure, but what else?
Gene Coyle
On Mar 20, 2009, at 9:04 AM, Laurent GUERBY wrote:
On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 15:14 -0400, Nicole Woo wrote:
[...] The report, "Is the U.S. Unemployment Rate Today Already as High
as It was in 1982?," adjusts the current unemployment rate to account
for demographic and statistical differences that lower the
unemployment rate today by 1.4 percentage points, relative to the
official unemployment rate in 1982. After these adjustments, the
current unemployment level rises to 9.5 percent, a level that is close
to the 1982 average of 9.7 percent.
"After accounting for these demographic and statistical differences,
today's unemployment rate rises to 9.5 percent, already on a par with
the worst recession since the Great Depression," said Schmitt. [...]
This report, already alarming, fails to honestly inform the public of
the misleading nature of the unemployment measure.
If we look at the situation a significant fraction of the population,
that is "prime age men" in the range 25 year to 54 years old and
compare the official BLS statistics between 1982 and 2008 we
see the following relative to the civilion non instituional population
of this sex and age group:
In 1982 the average employment level was 86.5%, unemployment level was
7.5% and inactive level was 6.0% (total 100%), so total "without work"
of 13.5%
In 2008 the average employment level was 86.0%, unemployment level was
4.5% and inactive level 9.5% (total 100%), so total "without work" at
14%.
We see a huge swing in the unemployment measure, whereas the obviously
more reliable "without work" level is already worse in 2008 than 1982 on
year average. If we take a monthly measure the "without work" level was
15% in december 1982 (highest of the year) vs a never reached before
level of 16.4% in december 2008, a full 1.4% above.
No need for complex statistical adjustments to see that:
1/ the unemployment measure is totally unreliable for time based
comparisons
2/ when looking at a more reliable measure we see the situation
was already worse in december 2008 than in 1982 and has probably
moved in the wrong direction since then.
I hope in the near future the CEPR will use its communication channels
to truly inform the public, and point out the extraordinary fact
that in the past 3 decades not even one paper from the economist
community has come out looking at those striking facts.
Sincerely,
Laurent GUERBY
http://guerby.org/blog
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