Discussion
Introduction:
The unemployment rate is a primary economic indicator. Many people view it as particularly important because it measures a level of hardship that is not necessarily conveyed in GDP statistics. Every l% jump in the U.S. unemployment rate means an additional 1.5 million jobs are lost. These effects are not spread equally over society, and there can be great variation across races and other demographic categories. For an example of a demographic comparison, rates are shown here for white and black men and women. The labor force participation rate tells a vivid story about the United States over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As more and more women have entered, men have also exited, so that the two rates have converged.
Discussion Questions:
1. In the Great Recession of the late 2000s, roughly how many percentage points did the unemployment rate of black men rise?
2. How do you explain the labor force participation rate changes between men and women?