EPI Highlights Truth About Unemployment Rate
May 23, 2006
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May 23, 2006 – The Economic Policy Institute recently debunked misleading comments by the Bush administration regarding the U.S. unemployment rate.
The White House said: “The unemployment rate is at 4.7 percent – lower than the average of the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s.”
However, the unemployment rate does not take into account potential workers who have given up looking for work and left the job market.
Therefore, a more accurate measure would be the employment rate – or the share of the adult population that is employed. That number has actually gone down 1.3 percent since March of 2001.
The EPI report states: “were job creation occurring at a similar rate as the last recovery, employment growth would be about 300,000 jobs per month as opposed to the current underlying trend of about 200,000 jobs per month.”
Read the entire EPI report.
