> BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1999:
>
> The jobless rate remained steady and low throughout much of the United
> States in May, BLS finds in its state and regional employment report.
> Regionally, the Midwest once again had the lowest unemployment rate of any
> region in the country, at 3.6 percent, while the West had the highest, 4.9
> percent. The jobless rate in both the south and the Northeast was 4.2
> percent (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
>
> The debate continues on whether there is a need to revise the unemployment
> insurance system to better accommodate the increasing number of low-wage
> workers entering the workforce as a result of welfare reform. A new
> report issued by the National Governors' Association explores varying
> perspectives (Daily Labor Report, page A-3).
>
> Changes made to the CPI since 1983 would have caused the index to grow at
> an average annual rate 0.45 percentage point less than the official index
> during the 1978-98 period, according to a new research paper published by
> BLS. A series of changes the BLS made in the price index since 1983 "to
> make the present and future CPI more accurate" would also have made the
> index grow at a slower pace, according to the report slated for
> publication in the June Monthly Labor Report. BLS economists Kenneth J.
> Stewart and Stephen B. Reed constructed a new index, the CPI research
> series using current methods (CPI-U-RS), that attempts to estimate what
> the measured rate of inflation in the CPI, for all urban consumers (CPI-U)
> would have been over the 1978-98 period had the methods currently used
> been in effect since 1978 (Monthly Labor Review, page A-1, Text E-1).
>
> Inflation's death is greatly exaggerated, says David L. Littmann, senior
> vice president and chief economist at Comerica, Inc. writing on the
> editorial page of The Wall Street Journal (page A26). Fed governors must
> pray each day that the world economy won't improve dramatically anytime
> soon. But the world economy is recovering. The ration of people
> voluntarily quitting their jobs to total unemployment has reached an
> 8-year high, suggesting that compensation packages will rise; retail sales
> continue to surge; and despite a stronger dollar, prices for imported
> goods rose for the third month in a row.
>
> Computer viruses have cost businesses worldwide $7.6 billion this year,
> primarily fighting the Melissa virus and the Explore.zip worm, according
> to independent research firm computer Economics. Experts anticipate more
> virus attacks. In other findings, to be released today, more than half of
> the information systems professionals surveyed said they were not
> confident in their organization's virus protection program and expected
> system failures in the coming year, according to a survey done for
> Hewlett-Packard by Intelliquest (USA Today, page 1B).
>
>
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