文档介绍：Unemployment and Its Natural Rate
Chapter 26
Categories of Unemployment
The problem of unemployment is usually divided into two categories.
The long-run problem and the short-run problem:
The natural rate of unemployment
The cyclical rate of unemployment
Natural Rate of Unemployment
The natural rate of unemployment is unemployment that does not go away on its own even in the long run.
It is the amount of unemployment that the economy normally experiences.
Cyclical Unemployment
Cyclical unemployment refers to the year-to-year fluctuations in unemployment around its natural rate.
It is associated with with short-term ups and downs of the business cycle.
Describing Unemployment
Three Basic Questions:
How does government measure the economy’s rate of unemployment?
What problems arise in interpreting the unemployment data?
How long are the unemployed typically without work?
How is Unemployment Measured?
Unemployment is measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
It surveys 60,000 randomly selected households every month.
The survey is called the Current Population Survey.
How is Unemployment Measured?
Based on the answers to the survey questions, the BLS places each adult into one of three categories:
Employed
Unemployed
Not in the labor force
How is Unemployment Measured?
The BLS considers a person an adult if he or she is over 16 years old.
How is Unemployment Measured?
A person is considered employed if he or she has spent most of the previous week working at a paid job.
How is Unemployment Measured?
A person is unemployed if he or she is on temporary layoff, is looking for a job, or is waiting for the start date of a new job.