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Isn't unemployment rate a weird magic number that changes depending on how the government decides to calculate it?
by torginus 5y ago
Isn't unemployment rate a weird magic number that changes depending on how the government decides to calculate it?
- gruez 5y agoThere are different definitions of unemployment (BLS uses U1 through U6) and they give different numbers, but the US government is pretty consistent at using U3 as the "official" unemployment rate. When the other unemployment rates are mentioned, it's usually as rhetorical devices by politicians/pundits to say how the badly the current administration is doing (eg. "you're a fool if you think the unemployment rate is [U3 unemployment rate], the actual unemployment rate is [U4/U5/U6 unemployment rate]!"). I'm not aware of governments flip flopping between different unemployment definitions, at least in developed countries.