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楼主 |
发表于 2012-12-8 05:46 PM
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Why Real Unemployment Rate is 8.1% (from Barron's)
Take the broadest measure of underutilization, U-6. While U-3, the official rate, includes only jobless folks older than 16 who have looked for work over the past four weeks, U-6 adds two other categories. The first is the "marginally attached" -- people who haven't looked for employment over the past four weeks, but have done so over the past 12 months. The second added category consists of the involuntary part-timers -- people who work part-time, but are searching for full-time positions.
Now, against a 7.7% U-3 in November, U-6 was 14.4%. But since any single month can be volatile, it's more meaningful to note that, over the past three months, U-3 has averaged 7.8% and U-6, 14.6%. And according to the historical trends, U-6 is telling us that labor underutilization is a worse problem than implied by U-3.
That judgment comes from a fairly liberal "baseline" ratio between the two. The ratio between U-6 and U-3 has generally fluctuated between 1.7 and 1.8 since January 1994, the first month the BLS began keeping records. For example, when U-3 averaged 4.0% in January-March 2000, U-6 averaged 7.1%, a ratio of 1.78; when U-3 averaged 9.9% through October-December 2009, U-6 averaged 17.1%, a ratio of 1.73.
But the ratio over the past three months has been 1.87, the highest on record. Assume a ratio at the top of the normal range of 1.8, and U-6 is compatible with an official unemployment rate of 8.1%. That's the problem. |
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狗仔卡
发表于 2012-11-15 10:15 PM
发表于 2012-12-1 01:52 AM
