>I thought I knew what this meant but STFW anyway and came across this:
>
>http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n1-1.html
>
>[Nonemployment
>The percent of the adult population that is not employed has been declining
>for many years and, compared to many other nations, is unusually low.
Working for a right-wing think tank means you can say whatever the hell you feel like. Here's the BLS's data for 2002. They report the employment/population ratio; the "nonemployed" (sometimes called "inactive") share is 100-EPR.
EPR inactive Australia 60.6 39.4 Canada 62.4 37.6 France 52.0 48.0 Germany 52.2 47.8 Italy 44.1 55.9 Japan 57.5 42.5 Netherlands 64.0 36.0 Sweden 60.7 39.3 UK 59.6 40.4 U.S. 62.7 37.3