What is the true normalized unemployment rate?

Discussion in 'Economics' started by nitro, Nov 28, 2009.

  1. nitro

    nitro

    I found two sources that show how the unemployment rate is calculated:

    http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.pdf
    http://www.bls.gov/cps/rvcps03.pdf

    This is actually rather complicated and seems rather crude to me.

    The question I have is, if we used the same metric that we used in the thirties before all these changes that were made, what would the unemployment number be today?

    I estimate closer to 20% in 1930s style metric.
     
  2. nitro

    nitro

    Thanks. That is an interesting web site.