{"id":708901,"date":"2010-04-05T09:42:30","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T13:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=81375"},"modified":"2010-04-05T09:42:30","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T13:42:30","slug":"the-trouble-with-unemployment-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/708901","title":{"rendered":"The Trouble With Unemployment Math"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Post today runs <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/04\/04\/AR2010040402964.html?hpid=topnews\" >a timely reminder<\/a> that the nation&#8217;s unemployment rate will likely rise even as hundreds of thousands of jobs start being created. The reason is simple: The Labor Department equation used to crunch the jobless rate doesn&#8217;t consider those folks who&#8217;ve been so discouraged by the job market that they&#8217;ve stopped looking for work altogether. As the economy recovers, though, those folks will re-enter the official jobless pool, hiking the unemployment rate even as businesses are hiring. The Post provides more detail:<span id=\"more-81375\"><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The number of people looking for jobs rose by more than 200,000 last month compared with February, according to the Economic Policy Institute &#8212; and that&#8217;s a good sign, economists say. It means that Americans are seeing more jobs being created and that they&#8217;re optimistic about their prospects.<\/p>\n<p>But the supply of new jobs &#8212; 162,000 in March, the biggest monthly increase in three years &#8212; will accommodate only a fraction of the unemployed. Some economists say the jobless rate will not recede to pre-recession levels near 5 percent for four more years.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If anything, this is reminder that the official jobless rate is always misleading &#8212; and that lawmakers (not to mention journalists) would do better to recognize the broader numbers when tackling the topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Post today runs a timely reminder that the nation&#8217;s unemployment rate will likely rise even as hundreds of thousands of jobs start being created. The reason is simple: The Labor Department equation used to crunch the jobless rate doesn&#8217;t consider those folks who&#8217;ve been so discouraged by the job market that they&#8217;ve stopped [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2763,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-708901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2YpT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}