Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Unemployed in New York City
Going by the conventional definition of unemployment, the jobless rate in the U.S. stood at 9.7% in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But this figure only includes out-of-work Americans who have sought employment within the last four weeks. It does not include discouraged workers who have given up their search out of frustration, even though many of these people would gladly accept work if they could find it.
According to federal labor statistics, there were roughly 758,000 discouraged workers across the country in August, up from 349,000 in November 2007, which was just before the recession officially began. These uncounted Americans are rolled into a category known as “marginally attached to the labor force,” which also includes those who have stopped looking for work because of other reasons, like school, family responsibilities or health issues. But even many of these people would accept work in better economic times, say economists.
So if all the individuals who fall into the “marginally attached to the labor force” group (currently 2.3 million, an increase of 630,000 from a year earlier) were added to what’s commonly known as the unemployment figure, that rate would rise from 9.7% to 11%.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On (by Michael Luo, New York Times)
The Employment Situation—August 2009 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
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