The civilian employment-population ratio measures the percentage of working-age Americans who have a job, whether they are seeking one or not.Olsen explains how civilian employment-population ratio is a better measure of the impact unemployment is having on the economy. He tells us just how bad the news is:
America is suffering its largest (employment) drop since World War II. When the economy was at its Bush-era height, in 2007, a little over 63% of adult Americans had jobs. Friday's report shows that only about 58.4% do, a decline of nearly five percentage points.
Olsen then shows us what that means:
Since America has about 238 million noninstitutionalized civilian adults of working age, this decrease means that we have nearly 12 million fewer jobs today than we would have if the employment-population rate were still at its 2007 level of 63%. No other recession in the past 60 years saw such rapid job destruction in either absolute or percentage terms.Twelve million missing jobs, I find that figure staggering. No wonder the electorate is unhappy. 2010 is a tough time to be running for reelection.
