The U.S. Unemployment Rate

2020 ◽  
pp. 137-150
Author(s):  
Frank Stricker
Keyword(s):  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Works Progress Administration ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Discouraged Workers ◽  
Official Rate ◽  
Bureau Of Labor Statistics ◽  
The U.S

Creating a scientific survey of unemployment in the 1930s and 1940s was an advance for people’s understanding of unemployment and for rational government policy. Many government officials, including Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins and agencies including the Census Bureau, the Works Progress Administration, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), deserve credit for the achievement. However, today’s BLS unemployment rate omits too many people, and the low count weakens support for job-creation programs. This chapter offers a short history and a critique. It explains and evaluates the official rate, discusses hidden unemployment, including discouraged workers and other labor-force dropouts, evaluates alternative unemployment rates, including the BLS’s U-6 and the National Jobs for All Coalition’s rate, and examines the idea of full employment.

Notes from the Editors, February 2020

2020 ◽  
pp. c2-64
Author(s):  
The Editors
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Wage Growth ◽  
The Past ◽  
Labor Statistics ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
Bureau Of Labor Statistics ◽  
The U.S ◽  
New Jobs

buy this issue According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy is experiencing an unemployment rate that is at a fifty-year low. Yet, wage growth continues to be weak, with continuing wage stagnation even at the peak of the business cycle. A major and largely undertheorized reason for the sluggish wages in a period of seeming full employment is to be found in the fact that the new jobs being created by the economy do not measure up to those of the past in terms of weekly wages and hours, or in the degree to which they support households or even individuals.

Notes from the Editors, March 2020

2020 ◽  
pp. c2-64
Author(s):  
The Editors
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Wage Growth ◽  
The Past ◽  
Labor Statistics ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
Bureau Of Labor Statistics ◽  
The U.S ◽  
New Jobs

buy this issue According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy is experiencing an unemployment rate that is at a fifty-year low. Yet, wage growth continues to be weak, with continuing wage stagnation even at the peak of the business cycle. A major and largely undertheorized reason for the sluggish wages in a period of seeming full employment is to be found in the fact that the new jobs being created by the economy do not measure up to those of the past in terms of weekly wages and hours, or in the degree to which they support households or even individuals.

scholarly journals Origins of the Unemployment Rate: The Lasting Legacy of Measurement without Theory

2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 552-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Card
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Works Progress Administration ◽  
Monthly Report ◽  
Labor Force Survey ◽  
The World ◽  
Definition Of

The modern definition of unemployment emerged in the late 1930s from research conducted at the Works Progress Administration and the Census Bureau. According to this definition, people who are not working but actively searching for work are counted as unemployed. This concept was first used in the Enumerative Check Census, a follow-up sample for the 1937 Census of Unemployment, and continued with the Monthly Report on the Labor Force survey, begun in December 1939 by the Works Progress Administration. A similar definition is now used to measure unemployment around the world.

Problems of the US Economic Policy

2013 ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
V. Klinov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Equitable Distribution ◽  
Investment Rate ◽  
The Us ◽  
Budget Systems ◽  
Enterprise Activity ◽  
The U.S

How to provide for full employment and equitable distribution of incomes and wealth are the keenest issues of the U.S. society. The Democratic and the Republican Parties have elaborated opposing views on economic policy, though both parties are certain that the problems may be resolved through the reform of the federal tax and budget systems. Globalization demands to increase incentives for labor and enterprise activity and for savings to secure proper investment rate. Tax rates for labor and enterprise incomes are to be low, but tax rates for consumption, real estate and land should be progressive.

scholarly journals Campaign Finance Regulations and Public Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
MARTIN GILENS ◽  
SHAWN PATTERSON ◽  
PAVIELLE HAINES
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Independent Expenditures ◽  
American Elections ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Despite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. Here we take advantage of a change in the campaign finance regulations of half of the U.S. states mandated by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This exogenously imposed change in the regulation of independent expenditures provides an advance over the identification strategies used in most previous studies. Using a generalized synthetic control method, we find that after Citizens United, states that had previously banned independent corporate expenditures (and thus were “treated” by the decision) adopted more “corporate-friendly” policies on issues with broad effects on corporations’ welfare; we find no evidence of shifts on policies with little or no effect on corporate welfare. We conclude that even relatively narrow changes in campaign finance regulations can have a substantively meaningful influence on government policy making.

Syria under Pressure

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 53-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDERS STRINDBERG
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Wrong Side ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Sharp Criticism ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Invasion Of Iraq

Syria's sharp criticism of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 opened a particularly tense phase in Syrian-American relations, culminating in the May 2004 imposition of U.S. economic sanctions under the Syria Accountability Act. While accusing Damascus of being on the ““wrong side”” in the wars against terror and Iraq, Washington has raised a number of other issues, including Syria's military presence in Lebanon, its support for Hizballah and various Palestinian factions, its alleged ““interference”” in Iraq, and its possible possession of weapons of mass destruction. This report, based on numerous interviews with government officials, analysts, opposition figures, and ordinary citizens, examines Syria's reactions to these allegations, gradual changes in Syrian political culture, and various domestic developments.

scholarly journals The Logic and Legitimacy of Bank Supervision: The Case of the Bank Holiday of 1933

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Peter Conti-Brown ◽  
Sean H. Vanatta
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Banking System ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Banking Crises ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Bank Supervision ◽  
Political Skills ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. banking holiday of March 1933 was a pivotal event in twentieth-century political and economic history. After closing the nation's banks for nine days, the administration of newly inaugurated president Franklin D. Roosevelt restarted the banking system as the first step toward national recovery from the global Great Depression. In the conventional narrative, the holiday succeeded because Roosevelt used his political talents to restore public confidence in the nation's banks. However, such accounts say virtually nothing about what happened during the holiday itself. We reinterpret the banking crises of the 1930s and the 1933 holiday through the lens of bank supervision, the continuous oversight of commercial banks by government officials. Through the 1930s banking crises, federal supervisors identified troubled banks but could not act to close them. Roosevelt empowered supervisors to act decisively during the holiday. By closing some banks, supervisors made credible Roosevelt's claims that banks that reopened were sound. Thus, the union of FDR's political skills with the technical judgment of bank supervisors was the key to solving the banking crisis. Neither could stand alone, and both together were the vital precondition for further economic reforms—including devaluing the dollar—and, with them, Roosevelt's New Deal.

“The Magna Carta to Liberate Our Cities”

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-398
Author(s):  
Casey D. Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Chicano Movement ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Model Cities ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Starting in 1964, the U.S. federal government under President Lyndon Johnson passed an ambitious reform program that included social security, urban renewal, anti-poverty initiatives, and civil rights legislation. In cities like Los Angeles, these reforms fueled urban revitalization efforts in communities affected by economic decline. These reforms closed the gap between local residents and government officials in California and even subsequently brought the city’s African American and Mexican American population into greater political proximity. Looking closely at the impact of the Chicano Movement on the Model Cities Program, a federal initiative designed specifically for urban development and renewal, this article brings the role of U.S. government policy in shaping social justice priorities in Los Angeles, and the U.S. Southwest more broadly, into sharper view.

A framework for the evaluation and use of alternative data in the Consumer Expenditure Surveys

1915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Erhard ◽  
Brett McBride ◽  
Adam safir
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Plan ◽  
Consumer Expenditure ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Complementary Role ◽  
Labor Statistics ◽  
Weighting Procedures ◽  
Bureau Of Labor Statistics ◽  
The U.S

As part of the implementation of its strategic plan, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has increasingly studied the issue of using alternative data to improve both the quality of its data and the process by which those data are collected. The plan includes the goal of integrating alternative data into BLS programs. This article describes the framework used by the BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) program and the potential these data hold for complementing data collected in traditional formats. It also addresses some of the challenges BLS faces when using alternative data and the complementary role that alternative data play in improving the quality of data currently collected. Alternative data can substitute for what is presently being collected from respondents and provide additional information to supplement the variables the CE program produces or to adjust the CE program’s processing and weighting procedures.

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