Thiago Oppermann:
> Wouldn't the quality of unemployment also be relevant? A rate of 1% where the
> unemployed end up indentured to credit companies might be a lot worse than 5%
> if they are free to enjoy productive unemployment. ...
there's another, related, issue: any given unemployment rate tends to have more "oomph" these days in the U.S. than it used to, in terms of protecting profits and detering inflation. This fact might be captured by noting that unemployment is only one part of the "cost of job loss" (a concept developed by Julie Schor and Sam Bowles). For example, the cost of job loss is larger for any given unemployment rate if the availability of unemployment insurance is lower.
(cf. Schor, Juliet. 1987. "Class Struggle and the Macroeconomy: The Cost of Job Loss." In Robert Cherry et al., eds. The Imperiled Economy, Book I: Macroeconomics from a Left Perspective. New York: URPE.)
JD
