Tag Archives: unemployment rate

What’s not surprising about the Unemployment Rate

IN doing some research for my piece on the weaknesses masked by Maine’s unemployment rate (UER), I noticed two interesting things about the UER.  These two things should be kept in mind during the current campaign season. The state’s economy is certainly one of the central issues in the campaign season, and with that candidates […]

Lies, Damned Lies, and Maine’s Unemployment Rate

THERE’S been much debate about the state’s economy and labor market.  While both continue to improve following the depths of the recession, some have suggested that the labor market is struggling as evidenced by the state’s slow growth rates relative to the rest of the nation.  However, this argument is flawed because the state-to-state or […]

An Oddity in the Maine Economic Recovery

BINYAMIN Appelbaum at the New York Times has a new article arguing that measuring the recent economic recovery should focus on the number of employed rather than the unemployed.  Specifically, rather than focusing on the unemployment rate (which can be misleading since it does not count discouraged workers who give up looking for a job […]