Tag: unemployment rate

Bill McBride of the Calculated Risk blog explains why the participation rate — the percentage of Americans either working or actively seeking a job — is crucial in determining how far and how fast the unemployment rate drops.

Sometime this spring, Republicans turned against unemployment. In Nevada, Sharron Angle (R), the candidate facing incumbent Sen. Harry Reid (D), told local reporters, “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job.” (Untrue.) Angle also called the unemployed “spoiled.”

The White House Council of Economic Advisers have released their latest quarterly report on the stimulus and estimated that the American Recovery and Reinvestment...