Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Unemployment
Unemployment
Rate
IDENTIFYING
UNEMPLOYMENT
• Long-run versus Short-run Unemployment:
– Long-run: The natural rate of unemployment
– Short-run: The cyclical rate of unemployment
• Natural Rate of Unemployment
– The amount of unemployment that the economy normally
experiences and does not go away on its own even in the
long run.
• Cyclical Unemployment
– Associated with with short-term ups and downs of the
business cycle and refers to the year-to-year fluctuations in
unemployment around its natural rate.
• Describing Unemployment
– Three Basic Questions:
• How does government measure the economy’s rate
of unemployment?
• What problems arise in interpreting the
unemployment data?
• How long are the unemployed typically without
work?
How Is Unemployment Measured?
Employed
Labor Force
(135.1 million)
(141.8 million)
Adult
Population
(211.9 million)
Unemployed (6.7 million)
Copyright©2004 South-Western
Figure 2 Unemployment Rate Since 1960
Percent of
Labor Force
10 Unemployment rate
Natural rate of
4
unemployment
0
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Men
80
60
40 Women
20
0
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
Labor
Surplus of labor =
supply
Unemployment
Minimum
wage
WE
Labor
demand
0 LD LE LS Quantity of
Labor