IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ejw/journl/v14y2017i1p121-132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Slip and Drift in Labor Statistics Since 2007

Author

Listed:
  • Clifford F. Thies

Abstract

This paper draws attention to recent trends concerning statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor. One is a slip in labor force participation even after controlling for demographic changes in the population. Another is some provisional indication that the official unemployment rate is drifting apart from other measures of the performance of the labor force. Economists should make greater use of additional sources of data on the labor market, and I offer some reasons to be concerned with effects of long-term unemployment, moral effects, beyond lost output.

Suggested Citation

  • Clifford F. Thies, 2017. "Slip and Drift in Labor Statistics Since 2007," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 14(1), pages 121–132-1, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:14:y:2017:i:1:p:121-132
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/File+download/958/ThiesJan2017.pdf?mimetype=pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/1064
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keyssar,Alexander, 1986. "Out of Work," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521297677.
    2. Mulligan, Casey B., 2012. "The Redistribution Recession: How Labor Market Distortions Contracted the Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199942213.
    3. David Card, 2011. "Origins of the Unemployment Rate: The Lasting Legacy of Measurement without Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 552-557, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Komlos, 2019. "Estimating Labor Market Slack, U.S. 1994-2019," CESifo Working Paper Series 7941, CESifo.
    2. John Komlos, 2019. "The Real U.S. Unemployment Rate Is Twice the Official Rate, and the Phillips Curve," CESifo Working Paper Series 7859, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hugh Rockoff, 2019. "On the Controversies behind the Origins of the Federal Economic Statistics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 147-164, Winter.
    2. Eichengreen, Barry & Hatton, Tim, 1988. "Interwar Unemployment in International Perspective," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt7bw188gk, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    3. Joshua L. Rosenbloom, 1999. "The Challenges of Economic Maturity: New England, 1880 - 1940," NBER Historical Working Papers 0113, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. John A. James & Michael G. Palumbo & Mark Thomas, 2007. "Consumption smoothing among working-class American families before social insurance," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(4), pages 606-640, October.
    5. Benjamin Bridgman, 2016. "Engines of Leisure," BEA Working Papers 0137, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    6. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes, 2016. "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? The Safety Net and Poverty in the Great Recession," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 403-444.
    7. Martin Guzi, 2014. "An Empirical Analysis of Welfare Dependence in the Czech Republic," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 64(5), pages 407-431, November.
    8. Anna Aizer & Shari Eli & Adriana Lleras-Muney & Keyoung Lee, 2020. "Do Youth Employment Programs Work? Evidence from the New Deal," NBER Working Papers 27103, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Peter Ganong & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2018. "The Decline, Rebound, and Further Rise in SNAP Enrollment: Disentangling Business Cycle Fluctuations and Policy Changes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 153-176, November.
    10. Poitras, Geoffrey, 2018. "The pre-history of econophysics and the history of economics: Boltzmann versus the marginalists," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 507(C), pages 89-98.
    11. Martin Beraja & Erik Hurst & Juan Ospina, 2019. "The Aggregate Implications of Regional Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(6), pages 1789-1833, November.
    12. Hansen, G.D. & Ohanian, L.E., 2016. "Neoclassical Models in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2043-2130, Elsevier.
    13. Cristina Gabriela ZAMFIR, 2018. "Unemployment Prospective in Romania," Economics and Applied Informatics, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 2, pages 79-86.
    14. Geert Bekaert & Eric Engstrom & Andrey Ermolov, 2020. "Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply Effects of COVID-19: A Real-time Analysis," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-049, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Fernando Martins & Domingos Seward, 2019. "Into the heterogeneities in the Portuguese labour market: an empirical assessment," Working Papers w201908, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    16. Reich, Michael & West, Rachel, 2015. "The Effects of Minimum Wages on Food Stamp Enrollment and Expenditures," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt0wh9z8x4, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    17. Edward Stringham, 2014. "It’s not me, it’s you: the functioning of Wall Street during the 2008 economic downturn," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 269-288, December.
    18. Das, Debasmita, 2019. "SNAP Work Requirement and Food Insecurity," MPRA Paper 109964, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Oct 2021.
    19. Di Xu & Sabrina Solanki & Ashley Harlow, 2020. "Examining the Relationship Between 2-year College Entry and Baccalaureate Aspirants’ Academic and Labor Market Outcomes: Impacts, Heterogeneity, and Mechanisms," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 61(3), pages 297-329, May.
    20. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman, 2000. "Downtime in American Manufacturing Industry: 1870 and 1880," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0048, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    unemployment rate; participation rate; discouraged worker; learned helplessness;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:14:y:2017:i:1:p:121-132. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jason Briggeman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edgmuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.