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The Anomaly of U-3: Why the Unemployment Rate is Overstating the Strength of Today’s Labor Market

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  • Nick Buffie

Abstract

By examining the historical relationship between the unemployment rate and alternative measures of labor market slack, it is determined that today’s labor market has far more slack than is typically associated with an unemployment rate of 5.0 percent. It is therefore unlikely that the economy is at or near full employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Nick Buffie, 2015. "The Anomaly of U-3: Why the Unemployment Rate is Overstating the Strength of Today’s Labor Market," CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs 2015-24, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
  • Handle: RePEc:epo:papers:2015-24
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    File URL: http://cepr.net/documents/anomaly-of-U-3-2015-12.pdf
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    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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    employment; unemployment; unemployment rate; slack; U-3;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J - Labor and Demographic Economics
    • E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

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