We are now almost 24 months into the Great Recession. While many expect NBER will eventually say that The Great Recession ended several months ago, they have not yet. By contrast, the recession that began The Great Depression, per NBER, lasted 43 months. It seems only fair to compare the two, so I trust I […]

By Spencer The weekly initial unemployment claims are widely reported and various charts show how they have been falling since the peak. But it is hard to compare the drop in claims this cycle compared to after other severe recessions in the standard charts showing claims over time. So to make such comparisons easier I […]

Rdan After having received e-mails regarding Mark Thoma’s post on types of unemployment about who was included and excluded from the per centages, I thought a note on the relevance of the employment to population ratio to be worth repeating from comments on that post. Lifted from comments by run 75441 regarding “unemployment”here: …[D]id everyone […]

Rdan For the sake of argument, jobs in our future over the next few years or so appear to be in the health care industry and education. Jobs needing less education than a BA are among the fastest growing. Where are tomorrow’s jobs going to come from? The question is more urgent than ever, with […]

Robert Waldmann Larry Summers, who is very very good at provoking debate, said “It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that’s not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work.” Paul Krugman responds here True. But we are not, in fact, expanding the total amount […]

by divorced one like Bush While your reading this, think about the physics concept of two things occupying the same time and space. Think about the similar idea that light is both a wave and a particle. Think about the message we have been told that many very bright people (like physicist) went to Wall […]

rdan Sandwichman, the go to guy on labor issues and author of the series Chapman, Labor, and Unemployment at Econospeak suggests an alternative to the myth of supremacy of capital, which is after all an idea that reminds me of King Midas in our little child version, but in the adult world has several versions […]

rdan The Sacremento Bee has forwarded this story (h/t reader Denis) The unionized government work force has roughly 200,000 or so employees represented by 12 labor organizations. It’s a vast, diverse group ranging from custodians to doctors, clerks to engineers. And don’t forget non-union managers. All get different contract deals with varying terms. In a […]

Robert Waldmann is very very late with this one. Appears that long long ago (in blogtime) Michelle Malkin said that Larry Katz once wrote that unemployment insurance causes unemployment. I know Larry Katz, Larry Katz was my PhD co-supervisor, Larry Katz is a friend of mine and Ms Malkin, you’re no Larry Katz. Malkin was […]

Via Dr. Black, those RBC models may be missing a variable or two: In April, the rate in the United States rose to 8.9 percent. When the European figures are compiled, it seems likely that the American rate will be higher for the first time since Eurostat began compiling the numbers in 1993…. First, it […]