The unemployment rate was NOT at an alltime low in the late 1960s.
Scroll back a bit Doug.
Gene Coyle
Doug Henwood wrote:
Peter Bohmer
wrote:
While the overall unemployment rate was
slightly below 4% in the late
1960's, I remember that in a study of several black communities in
major urban centers in 1967, the official unemployment rate there was
10% or more and the underemployment rate, which the labor department
calculated at that time, was well over 20%. There was hardly full
employment in these communities. When we get overly influenced by the
official statistics and ideology, we sometimes deny the lived reality
of many people.
I feel like I have this conversation about once a month, so maybe I
should just program this into a script. Yes, sure, there are many
flaws with the official unemployment rate. But they're probably more
or less consistent over time, so the fact that the official rate was
at an all-time low in the late 1960s suggests the labor market was as
tight as it's ever been. The rate is not a measure of human
deprivation, it's a measure of slack in the job market. And as
everyone who's ever read Kalecki's great article on the political
aspects of full employment knows, that couldn't last.
Doug
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