For December, 2015, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the following data:
Employment (N) = 149.929 million
Unemployment (U) = 7.904 million
Out of the Labor Force (OLF) = 94.103 million
Involuntary Part-time Employment = 6.02 million
a. Calculate (to one decimal place) the unemployment rate, the employment-to-population ratio, and the labor force participation rate. In addition, please calculate what the unemployment rate would have been if individuals who were involuntarily employed part time were counted as half-employed and half-unemployed in calculating the unemployment rate. You must show your work to get credit here.
b. For each of the first three indicators that you have calculated, compare their values as of the outset of the Great Recession with their values in December, 2015. In addition, discuss the differential impacts of the recession on different industries (broadly defined), and note the relevance of income elasticity of demand as a factor explaining these differential impacts.