First Presidential Debate

[Bond]

Originally Posted by Professor S

It' actually below 8%, but most serious analysts continue to believe our employment situation is getting worse, not better. The problem is the unemployment rate on surveys those who are actively searching for work. If you follow the labor participation rate, we are at the lowest point since 1980 or so. As the graph below shows, participation has continued to plummet under Pres. Obama. http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet



What is the reason why participation has dropped while unemployment has gotten better? People have given up, and/or their unemployment benefits have expired. I won't even get into underemployment or forced early retirement...

This is true. To be honest, I don't think most economists take the CPS unemployment rate (at 7.8% now) very seriously. The methodology is rather wacky, but the issue is if it were changed the survey loses its historical persuasiveness. I used to have a nice flowchart that explains the telephone question tree to determine if one is 1) employed, 2) unemployed, or 3) "out of the workforce," but I can't find it.

This is a good Wikipedia graph explaining the various rates: