Three-and-a-Half Million U.S. Employees Have Been Mislaid: Or, an Explanation of Unemployment, 1934-1941
Journal of Political Economy
1976
open access
A major conceptual error in the standard BLS and Lebergott unemployment estimates for 1930-43 is reported. Emergency workers (employees of government contracyclical programs such as WPA) were counted as unemployed on a normal-jobs-to-be-created instead of job-seekers unemployment definition. For 1933-41, the corrected unemployment levels are reduced by 2-3.5 million people and the rates by 4-7 percentage points. The corrected data show strong movement toward the natural unemployment rate after 1933 and are very well explained by an anticipations-search model using annual full-time earnings.
- DOI
- 10.1086/260407
- Volume
- 84 (1)
- Pages
- 1-16
- Language
- en
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- Sources
- openalex crossref