{"id":258852,"date":"2024-09-07T23:44:32","date_gmt":"2024-09-07T23:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/07\/ej-antoni-heritage-on-what-unemployment-rate-we-should-be-looking-at\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:11:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:11:28","slug":"ej-antoni-heritage-on-what-unemployment-rate-we-should-be-looking-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/07\/ej-antoni-heritage-on-what-unemployment-rate-we-should-be-looking-at\/","title":{"rendered":"EJ Antoni\/Heritage on What Unemployment Rate We Should Be Looking At"},"content":{"rendered":"

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EJ Antoni\/Heritage<\/a> writes alarmingly about how excluding marginally attached workers from the calculation of unemployment is misleading:<\/p>\n

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Once you factor in the millions of people missing from the labor market (don\u2019t have jobs but are excluded from official unemployment calculation), the unemployment rate jumps from 4.2% to somewhere btwn 7.0% and 8.5%, depending on methodology:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Indeed U6 \u2014 which incorporates marginally attached workers into the calculation of unemployment \u2014 is higher than U3.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1:<\/strong> Official unemployment rate (U3) (blue), and total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force (U6) (tan). NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS, NBER.<\/em><\/p>\n

U6 is indeed higher than U3 by 3.7 ppts<\/strong><\/em>. Over the sample shown above, the gap is on average\u20264.5 ppts<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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