This chart gives a good indication of the percentage of people in the U.S. that are either unemployed or underemployed. It includes those who are: 1) unemployed, 2) working part time for economic reasons, and 3) marginally attached. The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines persons employed part time for economic reasons as “those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.”1 It defines marginally attached as “persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past.”2 This is the broadest measure of labor underutilization that the government tracks and is referred to as the U-6.
I think the U-6 stops short of capturing true underutilization in the labor force. Its most obvious omission is of people that want a job but have fallen out of the labor force. While it includes marginally attached persons, it leaves out those that want a job but have not looked for work in the previous year. Obviously, these individuals are not putting much effort into finding employment, but do indicate they want a job. Monday’s post will show how the employment picture changes when these individuals are included.
1 Bureau of Labor Statistics Table A-12. Altnerative measures of labor underutilization.
2 Ibid
Data for the chart is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
The number of people working part time for economic reasons is up dramatically over the past year. For example, people who want to work full time but can only find part-time employment fall into this category. This is another case of how the employment picture is actually much worse than the government states. Why? Because these individuals show up as employed, and are not counted in the unemployment rate. However, in most cases they are substantially underemployed.
Source: Data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics report A-7. Employed persons by class of worker and part-time status, seasonally adjusted.
As this chart shows it has become increasingly difficult to find employment once a job is lost. It is important to note that the actual number of people unemployed 27 or more weeks is much greater than the government’s statistics show. Why? Because the government does not include in the offical unemployment numbers people that it claims have fallen out of the labor force. More on this in the next couple of days.
Source: Data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics report A-12. Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment, seasonally adjusted.
This chart is the first in a series on the U.S. employment picture.
Source: Data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics report A.12 (seasonally adjusted)
A new paper on unemployment and housing has just been published. You can find it under the “Pages” section in the upper righthand section of this page.
This chart of farmland prices over the past decade looks very similar to charts of home prices at their peak. It leads me to believe that the price of farmland is the next shoe to drop. Stay tuned for a complete article on this topic in coming days.
Source: Historical Agriculture Credit Conditions Surveys - Tobias Madden, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Gettysburg Address as inscribed on the walls at the Lincoln Memorial
in Washington, D.C.
By: Abraham Lincoln
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth
on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-
field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of
that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave
their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot
consecrate…we cannot hallow…this ground. The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it
far above our poor power to add or detract. The world
will little note nor long remember what we say here, but
it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the
living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us…that from these honored
dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which
they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain;
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom; and that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Is this a picture of our post bubble future? While the situation in Japan is different from the U.S., there are reasons to be concerned. They call the situation in Japan the “lost decade.” However, it is really more like the “lost quarter century.”
Data Source:
Yahoo Finance
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