Unemployment 4.2%

[Barbara Hamilton]

Not to open yet another can of worms, but the "individual" unemployment rate
certainly doesn't measure another important concept: the situation where
there is no employed adult in the household. In other words, it certainly is
not a measure of household well-being, which (in only some instances), might
even be a more accurate way of looking at individual well-being in the sense
that some unemployed people have access to resources from others while other
unemployed people do not.

The rate also does not in anyway account for the duration of unemployment.

Now, of course there are other rates to measure the above and of course the
UR was never "intended" to do any of this (see any of the Levitan Commission
documents).  However, what its original intent was and what it in fact is
used for by the US media are two different things!!  It is often discussed
in the context of measuring hardship.  So, this usage as opposed to original
intent begs the question as to whether or not is  useful as a measure of
hardship.

Barbara