Jobless Rate at Lowest Level in 2 Years

[STING2]

The nations unemployment rate has fallen to 5.6%, the lowest since October 2001 when it was at 5.4%.

Unemployment during the Clinton years(average for each year):

1993 6.9%
1994 6%
1995 5.6%
1996 5.4%
1997 5%
1998 4.6%
1999 4.3%
2000 4%

2001 4.8%
2002 5.9%

The average for 2003 is not out yet, but the monthly peak was 6.4% in the summer of 2003.

Current unemployment is now lower than it was during most of Clinton's first administration.

 

[ILuvLarryMullen]

the only problem is that the official unemployment rate isn't a good portrayal of the actual amount of joblessness. Iy only counts people that have been unemployed for 6 months (or maybe a year, I can't remember which) or less and are actively seeking employment. Therefore you could actually have more people that have dropped off the unemployment figures than ever before, making the actual unemployment rate appear to be better when in fact it hasn't changed or has gotten worse. i don't know the statistics on the people who are left off, so i couldn't say whether this is the case or not (it could have been just as high during the clinton years for all I know), I'm just saying that you can't count on official unemployment figures for an accurate portrayal of what is actually going on.

 

[nbcrusader]

The last time we changed the way we calculated unemployment was in the early 80's. The old methods did not fully consider self-employment.

The current method is as valid as any, and only provides meaningful information when consistently calculated over a period of time.

 

[STING2]

The way unemployment is measured by economist today is good enough for me. The UNDP actually has some stats on "longterm unemployment" those that have supposedly fallen of the radar and the USA's long term unemployment was much smaller than most European Countries.