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_____________________________________________________________________________________ Source D Censky, Annalyn. The other unemployment rate. CNN.com. Cable News Network. 18 October 2012. Web.

13 December 2012. <http://money. cnn.com/2012/10/18/news/economy/other-unemployment-rate/ index.html> _____________________________________________________________________________________

The following is excerpted from and online blog of CNNMoney from a news Web site.

The unemployment rate only measures people who have searched for jobs in the last four weeks, while millions of other out-of-work Americans aren't included. But some economists think there's a better way to measure the health of the job market. Along with the official unemployment rate, the Department of Labor also calculates something called the employment-population ratio, which measures the percent of the U.S. adult population that has a job. The rate currently stands at 58.7%. While it jumps around slightly from month to month, it has essentially been stuck there for three years -- close to the lowest level since the 1980s. That paints a much bleaker picture of the job market than the unemployment rate, which has fallen considerably in the last year. "The employment-to-population ratio is the best measure of labor market conditions and it currently shows that there has been almost no improvement whatsoever over the past three years," Paul Ashworth, chief North American economist for Capital Economics said in a note to clients. The ratio is also telling because it means that 41% of working-age Americans are out of a job for one reason or another. So who are the non-working and why don't they have jobs? Related: Why the unemployment rate won't keep dropping About 5% of the adult population is "unemployed" in the technical sense of the word, meaning they don't have jobs but they looked for one in the last four weeks. Another 3% want a job but haven't search for one for at least a month. That leaves about 82 million people who simply don't want a job. About 60% of them are either over age 65 or under age 25. Presumably, many are retirees or full-time students. But the rest are in their prime working years, between ages 25 and 65. Some could be stay-at-home parents, or people who can't work due to health problems. The wealthy day trader who lives off his investments is in this category too. So is the struggling artist or musician who might not want a traditional job. Ultimately, the measure is really showing just how engaged the American population is in wage-earning jobs, arguably a better gauge of economy than the unemployment rate. "The ratio expresses more clearly how many people find working to be a 'good or attractive deal,'" said Tyler Cowen, economist and director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

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