Jobless rate captures only part of pain, By Mark Niquette, August 21, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “Considering the number of people she knows personally who are out of work, Amy Drake had suspected that the unemployment rate reported in recent months was too low. “It seemed like, statistically, it should be higher than what we hear in the news,” said Drake, 44, whose Columbus job in information-technology communications was eliminated in March. That’s why it was both illuminating and disturbing for Drake to learn that the unemployment rate, widely used as a key economic indicator and political weapon, wouldn’t include her if she hadn’t looked for a job for a month. Although it’s often assumed that the jobless rate includes all unemployed workers or is based on official claims for unemployment benefits, it actually comes from a monthly survey of about 60,000 households nationwide — and it counts only those who have actively looked for work during the past four weeks…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty