March 4, 2010 5:20 p.m.
The budget is out and there is a lot of information on the debt and deficit ratios to GDP and the numbers of jobs created by the economic action plan.But so far and I have looked and scanned the documents quickly, I see very little specifically on projecting unemployment rates over the next twelve months. But this projection is critical in making sense of the deficit projections and in assessing how effective the plan is likely to be in achieving its goals.
Obviously a projection of 7.0 % unemployment at year end is rather different from a projection of 6.5 % or even 6 %. The details are needed so a proper analysis can be made.
Aha, after a second look at the first budget document I have found the table I was looking for.It is quite frankly the most important table in the budget. It gives a consensus of private sector forecasts and the budget's own projections on unemployment over the next seven years.
The projections clearly show that unemployment is expected to remain far too high to allow the government to safely slash government expenditures without generating higher unemployment and prolonging the miserable consequences of the recession.
The projected unemployment rates are as follows: 2010 8.5 %; 2011 7.9 % ;2012 7.4 %; 2013 6.9 % ;2014
6.6 %; and 2015 7.6 %.
Clearly projections for years from now are rather unreliable. But none of these projected unemployment rates are low enough to justify austerity cuts and certainly not the cuts laid out in the budget.
This is particularly true of the projected cuts to the defense budget which needs to be maintained in order to rebuild the military and resupply it after its arduous and brave service in Afghanistan.
The opposition parties and the media ought to ask some very tough questions about the thinking that lies behind this budget in the light of these unemployment projections.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Canadian budget not time for deficit cutting
March 4, 1:03 a.m.
The speech from the throne suggests that the Budget to be released tomorrow will propose government expenditure cutbacks in 2011 in an effort to reduce the deficit. This action is premature because it is very unlikely that the unemployment rate will have fallen to less than 6 % by the beginning of 2011 only 9 months from now. The policy that the Government ought to pursue is to focus on disbursing the remainder of the stimulus package announced last year, ensure that the Bank of Canada does not raise interest rates over the coming two quarters and target a large reduction in the jobless rate. As the rate of unemployment is reduced the flow of revenues into government coffers will increase and the outflow of expenditures on the unemployed will decline. Overtime the ratio of debt to GDP will begin to stabilize and fall. Remember that currently the ratio of debt to GDP is at a very tolerable level, some 32.1 % and the deficit is quite small in comparison to the 1.4 trillion dollar GDP, less than 3 % of the GDP. Remember during the Second world war the ratio exceeded 20 % .
We shall see what the budget says tomorrow and I will comment in detail about it once I have had a chance to study it carefully.
Since deficit hysteria like the measles spreads quickly I now have a number of countries to worry about from Europe to America. The good news is that more and more people question the conventional fiscal conservative wisdom and are looking for a more rational response to the crisis of our times. That crisis is not the deficit but the problems of unemployment, poverty, financial instability and the age old threats to humanity from disease and the sometimes harsh unpredictability of nature.
Here reason can light a path to a better solution.
The speech from the throne suggests that the Budget to be released tomorrow will propose government expenditure cutbacks in 2011 in an effort to reduce the deficit. This action is premature because it is very unlikely that the unemployment rate will have fallen to less than 6 % by the beginning of 2011 only 9 months from now. The policy that the Government ought to pursue is to focus on disbursing the remainder of the stimulus package announced last year, ensure that the Bank of Canada does not raise interest rates over the coming two quarters and target a large reduction in the jobless rate. As the rate of unemployment is reduced the flow of revenues into government coffers will increase and the outflow of expenditures on the unemployed will decline. Overtime the ratio of debt to GDP will begin to stabilize and fall. Remember that currently the ratio of debt to GDP is at a very tolerable level, some 32.1 % and the deficit is quite small in comparison to the 1.4 trillion dollar GDP, less than 3 % of the GDP. Remember during the Second world war the ratio exceeded 20 % .
We shall see what the budget says tomorrow and I will comment in detail about it once I have had a chance to study it carefully.
Since deficit hysteria like the measles spreads quickly I now have a number of countries to worry about from Europe to America. The good news is that more and more people question the conventional fiscal conservative wisdom and are looking for a more rational response to the crisis of our times. That crisis is not the deficit but the problems of unemployment, poverty, financial instability and the age old threats to humanity from disease and the sometimes harsh unpredictability of nature.
Here reason can light a path to a better solution.
U.S. GDP grows by 5.9%in fourth quarter
Feb 25, 2010
The latest data revision for the fourth quarter GDP result for the U.S. shows that largely on account of a reduced rate of inventory destocking in the manufacturing sector growth was a robust 5.9%.
This is good news. Exports were also up, as well as non residential fixed investment and business investment. Consumer spending was up but by a subdued amount.The housing market the scene of the original disaster that provoked this slump is showing some signs of recovery although month to month sales were down although higher than a year ago. The next quarter will reveal if this trend continues as inventories are drawn down by an up tick in production and sales.Since more of the stimulus monies will be spent in the next quarter this should help support the nascent recovery. If that happens then greater confidence should result in eventual employer rehiring and a reduction, albeit slowly, in the unemployment rate.
The latest data revision for the fourth quarter GDP result for the U.S. shows that largely on account of a reduced rate of inventory destocking in the manufacturing sector growth was a robust 5.9%.
This is good news. Exports were also up, as well as non residential fixed investment and business investment. Consumer spending was up but by a subdued amount.The housing market the scene of the original disaster that provoked this slump is showing some signs of recovery although month to month sales were down although higher than a year ago. The next quarter will reveal if this trend continues as inventories are drawn down by an up tick in production and sales.Since more of the stimulus monies will be spent in the next quarter this should help support the nascent recovery. If that happens then greater confidence should result in eventual employer rehiring and a reduction, albeit slowly, in the unemployment rate.
Misleading data on debts and growth
Feb. 17, 2010
Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard and Prof. Carmen Reinhart
have a new paper out that purports to show rising indebtedness above 90 % of the GDP impedes the rate of economic growth by 1 %. But the paper is less than convincing. In the first place in the developed world of advanced capitalism the number of data points of countries where debt levels exceed 90 % for any prolonged period of time are rather limited. They have a large set of data over many years but most of it is for lower debt levels and much of it for less developed countries where a lot else is going on with respect to economic growth than simply public sector debt.
But in addition there is a bigger problem with their analysis as it is presented and commented upon by Martin Wolf in the FT today. There is no discussion of causality. There may well be a correlation between slower growth and rising debt beyond 90 % of the GDP but which causes which ?
Almost always , particularly in monetarist policy oriented central banks interest rates are raised before a recession sets in. So slower growth is no surprise . It is a result of interest rate rise induced recession. Given the slower growth, debt levels inevitably rise because that is how the fiscal system of the advanced western countries is designed.There is no surprise here. But the cure to these higher debt levels is the restoration of growth and lower unemployment. So Rogoff and Reinhart because they do not, at least in the version of the paper that is posted on line(a link is provided in Martin Wolf's column in the FT on walking the fiscal tightrope), discuss this issue of causation have not demonstrated the conclusions they claim.
Rather than some arbitrary policy rule about debt to GDP, I prefer the following formulation which I have written about in the past. Responsible fiscal policy budgeting entails separating out investments in human capital and other capital account expenditures from the current expenditure budget, lowering the rate of unemployment to a consensually arrived at target range(below 5 % for the U.S. and Canada, ensuring that infrastructure is on a sustainable path through appropriate investment in it, and then and only then balance the current expenditure budget.
Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard and Prof. Carmen Reinhart
have a new paper out that purports to show rising indebtedness above 90 % of the GDP impedes the rate of economic growth by 1 %. But the paper is less than convincing. In the first place in the developed world of advanced capitalism the number of data points of countries where debt levels exceed 90 % for any prolonged period of time are rather limited. They have a large set of data over many years but most of it is for lower debt levels and much of it for less developed countries where a lot else is going on with respect to economic growth than simply public sector debt.
But in addition there is a bigger problem with their analysis as it is presented and commented upon by Martin Wolf in the FT today. There is no discussion of causality. There may well be a correlation between slower growth and rising debt beyond 90 % of the GDP but which causes which ?
Almost always , particularly in monetarist policy oriented central banks interest rates are raised before a recession sets in. So slower growth is no surprise . It is a result of interest rate rise induced recession. Given the slower growth, debt levels inevitably rise because that is how the fiscal system of the advanced western countries is designed.There is no surprise here. But the cure to these higher debt levels is the restoration of growth and lower unemployment. So Rogoff and Reinhart because they do not, at least in the version of the paper that is posted on line(a link is provided in Martin Wolf's column in the FT on walking the fiscal tightrope), discuss this issue of causation have not demonstrated the conclusions they claim.
Rather than some arbitrary policy rule about debt to GDP, I prefer the following formulation which I have written about in the past. Responsible fiscal policy budgeting entails separating out investments in human capital and other capital account expenditures from the current expenditure budget, lowering the rate of unemployment to a consensually arrived at target range(below 5 % for the U.S. and Canada, ensuring that infrastructure is on a sustainable path through appropriate investment in it, and then and only then balance the current expenditure budget.
Greek debt 'crisis' overblown 2
Feb 10, 2010
The financial press is full of stories warning of the impending disaster that has befallen Greece because of its supposed sovereign debt crisis. But this crisis is largely manufactured by the absurdly out of date and totally arbitrary deficit and debt criteria imposed by the European union and the European central bank.You will recall that these august institutions cry wolf whenever a member country has a deficit level that exceeds 3 % of the GDP and a debt level in excess of 60 %.
Almost all of the analysis lacks the salient statistical data about the Greek debt situation including its debt to GDP ratio over the past fifty years, the list of foreign holders of the debt, the percentage of the debt held by foreigners, the rate of unemployment in Greece and so on.
It is possible to assemble much of this information using Eurostat, the BIS and quality papers like the FT, the Wall Street journal etc. When one does that here are some of the salient facts.
Unemployment as of December 2009 was 9.7 % in Greece.
About 30 % of the Greek debt appears to be owed to foreign bond holders.These appear to be principally in France, Germany and Switzerland. Since about 99 % of the debt is denominated in Euros there is no exchange rate risk. (It is difficult to tell from the official data that I have searched so far as to who the principal foreign bond holders are but some of the financial press make these claims.But they sometimes get things wrong. For example, the Economist at one point claimed the population of Greece was only 7 million people. In fact, it is 11 million from the Government 's official data.)The debt to GDP ratio was as high as 119 % in 2005. It is now currently lower than this. One official site gives it as about 100%.
The proportion of the debt apparently owed to foreigners is higher than other EU members but it is not inherently a disaster unless the financial press can create an emotional stampede about the possibility of default and the necessity of austerity and bailout. This may happen but one must ask to whose benefit?
Since Greece has to rely upon the European central bank for help in managing their sovereign debt they are in an awkward situation because of the dogmatic rigid monetarism of that institution. The central bank should actually step in and buy a sufficient quantity of the Greek debt to calm nerves and assist the Greek government in the management of their debt.
It does not have to buy it all but a significant purchase that is in proportion to the size of Greek economy in monetary terms in relation to the whole Euro area would be appropriate.The ECB should be buying and selling govenment bonds from all of its member states as a normal part of its monetary policy.
It would help show that the panic is irrational and will be self-fulfilling with unforeseen consequences if left unchecked. Eurostat data suggests that the Greek debt to GDP ratio as of the end of the 3rd quarter 2009 was of the order of 99 %. Italy was higher 107 %. Japan was higher over 160 %.As stated above in the recent past 2005 it was higher at 119 % of the GDP according to the Greek Ministery of Finance, 2007 budget.
Now the recession has battered Greece as it has a number of countries.
Hence its projected deficit this year is about 13 % of the GDP. This is a significant figure but hardly Armageddon. If the media had not seized upon the situation and played up the fears that monetarists have about deficits I very much doubt that we would be having this crisis.The behaviour of speculative hedge funds in buying credit default swaps on Greek sovereign debt, thereby increasing pressure on Greece in managing its bond sales, even when the speculators hold none of the debt in their portfolios has also not helped. Such speculation should be strictly regulated.
One thing that is clear. IMF style austerity will not solve the problem but further strain the Greek economy which needs to recover to bring Greece through the crisis. It is a very bad and damaging policy idea. By all means support Greece. But forget austerity in an economy that already suffers from 9.7 % unemployment.
The financial press is full of stories warning of the impending disaster that has befallen Greece because of its supposed sovereign debt crisis. But this crisis is largely manufactured by the absurdly out of date and totally arbitrary deficit and debt criteria imposed by the European union and the European central bank.You will recall that these august institutions cry wolf whenever a member country has a deficit level that exceeds 3 % of the GDP and a debt level in excess of 60 %.
Almost all of the analysis lacks the salient statistical data about the Greek debt situation including its debt to GDP ratio over the past fifty years, the list of foreign holders of the debt, the percentage of the debt held by foreigners, the rate of unemployment in Greece and so on.
It is possible to assemble much of this information using Eurostat, the BIS and quality papers like the FT, the Wall Street journal etc. When one does that here are some of the salient facts.
Unemployment as of December 2009 was 9.7 % in Greece.
About 30 % of the Greek debt appears to be owed to foreign bond holders.These appear to be principally in France, Germany and Switzerland. Since about 99 % of the debt is denominated in Euros there is no exchange rate risk. (It is difficult to tell from the official data that I have searched so far as to who the principal foreign bond holders are but some of the financial press make these claims.But they sometimes get things wrong. For example, the Economist at one point claimed the population of Greece was only 7 million people. In fact, it is 11 million from the Government 's official data.)The debt to GDP ratio was as high as 119 % in 2005. It is now currently lower than this. One official site gives it as about 100%.
The proportion of the debt apparently owed to foreigners is higher than other EU members but it is not inherently a disaster unless the financial press can create an emotional stampede about the possibility of default and the necessity of austerity and bailout. This may happen but one must ask to whose benefit?
Since Greece has to rely upon the European central bank for help in managing their sovereign debt they are in an awkward situation because of the dogmatic rigid monetarism of that institution. The central bank should actually step in and buy a sufficient quantity of the Greek debt to calm nerves and assist the Greek government in the management of their debt.
It does not have to buy it all but a significant purchase that is in proportion to the size of Greek economy in monetary terms in relation to the whole Euro area would be appropriate.The ECB should be buying and selling govenment bonds from all of its member states as a normal part of its monetary policy.
It would help show that the panic is irrational and will be self-fulfilling with unforeseen consequences if left unchecked. Eurostat data suggests that the Greek debt to GDP ratio as of the end of the 3rd quarter 2009 was of the order of 99 %. Italy was higher 107 %. Japan was higher over 160 %.As stated above in the recent past 2005 it was higher at 119 % of the GDP according to the Greek Ministery of Finance, 2007 budget.
Now the recession has battered Greece as it has a number of countries.
Hence its projected deficit this year is about 13 % of the GDP. This is a significant figure but hardly Armageddon. If the media had not seized upon the situation and played up the fears that monetarists have about deficits I very much doubt that we would be having this crisis.The behaviour of speculative hedge funds in buying credit default swaps on Greek sovereign debt, thereby increasing pressure on Greece in managing its bond sales, even when the speculators hold none of the debt in their portfolios has also not helped. Such speculation should be strictly regulated.
One thing that is clear. IMF style austerity will not solve the problem but further strain the Greek economy which needs to recover to bring Greece through the crisis. It is a very bad and damaging policy idea. By all means support Greece. But forget austerity in an economy that already suffers from 9.7 % unemployment.
Campaign to lower unemployment essential
Harold R.Chorney
Montreal
February 9th, 2010
The New York Times' Bob
Herbert is correctly arguing that something massive is needed to lower the unemployment rate to reasonable levels in all income classes in the U.S.
What is needed to address this enormous problem is an all out Campaign to End Unemployment above 3-4 % of the labour force. This low rate should prevail throughout even the lowest income classes.
It may be even be possible to lower the rate below this level.But that would require a new consensus at the Federal Reserve on how low unemployment can fall before it acts to raise interest rates in response to supposed inflationary expectations in the bond market.
Some unemployment is accounted for by the simple desire to change jobs . But this may only be 1 or 2 % points. The late William Vickery, a Columbia university economist who won the Nobel prize and came originally from British Columbia argued that 1 % unemployment in the U.S. was both possible and feasible.
The key to lowering unemployment is to adopt very serious targets and provide the resources both from the Federal Reserve in terms of low interest rates and employment generating infrastructure spending from the Federal and state governments. This cannot happen if short term deficit reduction through expenditure cuts are the priority of government.
Unemployment in the past could be reduced in this way in a matter of months. Just look at the experience from the period 1939 to 1943.The rate in the U.S. fell from over 12 % in 1939 to under three percent by 1943. Unemployment fell to very low rates from high rates once the political opposition to government spending and deficits was eliminated by the patriotic exigencies of wartime.
But there is no need for another war to solve the problem. The point is what ended unemployment then and what could end it now is well planned government financed investment in the economy in highway projects, bridge construction and renewal ,air transportation up-grading, energy efficient mass transportation, harbour improvements, city beautification and renewal, reforestation, irrigation and water control projects , improved educational facilities, social, and co-operative housing projects, investments in innovative technologies, awards to job creating entrepreneurship.
Some of this is part of the current stimulus bill. But the amount of the stimulus although it has helped to reverse the slump in growth is regrettably too small to accomplish the laudable goal of dramatic reductions in the unemployment rate.
With proper regulation low interest rates do not have to result in another bubble. The concern about the public sector deficit is understandable, although largely misguided. Before people leap to conclusions about its burden they should understand that there are very serious methodological issues involved in its calculation. One of them is what is the acceptable rate of unemployment that the government is using to calculate the structural deficit associated with medicaid and medicare and the aging of the population.
It matters a lot what rate you
choose because other things being equal a higher rate enlarges the structural deficit.
It also matters how you account for expenditures such as health care and education. If you consider a large portion of them as investments in human capital they then get amortized over a long time period and are included in capital budgets rather than the current budget. I could go on and have in my many publications on this issue dating back to 1983, but the main point is that a lot of politics and debate clouds the issue of how to account for the burden of the debt. There is a lot of myth and hysteria here.
It would be far better to attack unemployment and put things right first . Then the U.S. and other countries can turn to their public sector debts and have a properly informed debate on the basis of a far more just society.
Montreal
February 9th, 2010
The New York Times' Bob
Herbert is correctly arguing that something massive is needed to lower the unemployment rate to reasonable levels in all income classes in the U.S.
What is needed to address this enormous problem is an all out Campaign to End Unemployment above 3-4 % of the labour force. This low rate should prevail throughout even the lowest income classes.
It may be even be possible to lower the rate below this level.But that would require a new consensus at the Federal Reserve on how low unemployment can fall before it acts to raise interest rates in response to supposed inflationary expectations in the bond market.
Some unemployment is accounted for by the simple desire to change jobs . But this may only be 1 or 2 % points. The late William Vickery, a Columbia university economist who won the Nobel prize and came originally from British Columbia argued that 1 % unemployment in the U.S. was both possible and feasible.
The key to lowering unemployment is to adopt very serious targets and provide the resources both from the Federal Reserve in terms of low interest rates and employment generating infrastructure spending from the Federal and state governments. This cannot happen if short term deficit reduction through expenditure cuts are the priority of government.
Unemployment in the past could be reduced in this way in a matter of months. Just look at the experience from the period 1939 to 1943.The rate in the U.S. fell from over 12 % in 1939 to under three percent by 1943. Unemployment fell to very low rates from high rates once the political opposition to government spending and deficits was eliminated by the patriotic exigencies of wartime.
But there is no need for another war to solve the problem. The point is what ended unemployment then and what could end it now is well planned government financed investment in the economy in highway projects, bridge construction and renewal ,air transportation up-grading, energy efficient mass transportation, harbour improvements, city beautification and renewal, reforestation, irrigation and water control projects , improved educational facilities, social, and co-operative housing projects, investments in innovative technologies, awards to job creating entrepreneurship.
Some of this is part of the current stimulus bill. But the amount of the stimulus although it has helped to reverse the slump in growth is regrettably too small to accomplish the laudable goal of dramatic reductions in the unemployment rate.
With proper regulation low interest rates do not have to result in another bubble. The concern about the public sector deficit is understandable, although largely misguided. Before people leap to conclusions about its burden they should understand that there are very serious methodological issues involved in its calculation. One of them is what is the acceptable rate of unemployment that the government is using to calculate the structural deficit associated with medicaid and medicare and the aging of the population.
It matters a lot what rate you
choose because other things being equal a higher rate enlarges the structural deficit.
It also matters how you account for expenditures such as health care and education. If you consider a large portion of them as investments in human capital they then get amortized over a long time period and are included in capital budgets rather than the current budget. I could go on and have in my many publications on this issue dating back to 1983, but the main point is that a lot of politics and debate clouds the issue of how to account for the burden of the debt. There is a lot of myth and hysteria here.
It would be far better to attack unemployment and put things right first . Then the U.S. and other countries can turn to their public sector debts and have a properly informed debate on the basis of a far more just society.
Unemployment some international data
Feb. 5, 2010
The latest U.S. unemployment rate is 9.7 %. Job losses continue but there are signs of a recovery in manufacturing and some employers are beginning to hire again. We shall see if this is the beginning of a trend.In previous recoveries a drop of 3/10 of a percent month to month is usually that.Some analysts are overly pessimistic and arguing it is simply a one month sample survey error but I doubt it. the rate also fell by 1/10 of a percent in Canada, falling to 8.3 % for January.
My water pipe has thawed out ! Here is some very interesting data on unemployment in ten of the world's leading economies. They show the depth of the global recession. the country that appears to be doing the best of these is the netherlands which has managed to keep its unemployment rate below 4 %, a remarkable accomplishment that reflects its labour market policies.
TABLE 1. Unemployment rates adjusted to U.S. concepts, 10 countries, seasonally adjusted, 2007-2009
United
States Canada Australia Japan France
(1) Germany
(1) Italy
(1) Nether-
lands (1) Sweden United
Kingdom
2007
U.S. Can Aus. Jap. France Germ It. Neth. Swe U.K.
4.6 5.3 4.4 3.9 8.1 8.7 6.2 3.2 6.2 5.4
2008
5.8 5.3 4.2 4.0 7.5 7.5 6.8 2.8 6.2 5.7
Qtr 1 2007
4.5 5.4 4.5 4.0 8.6 9.2 6.2 3.6 6.3 5.5
Qtr 2 2007
4.5 5.2 4.3 3.8 8.2 8.8 6.1 3.2 6.1 5.4
Qtr 3 2007
4.7 5.2 4.3 3.8 8.1 8.5 6.3 3.0 5.8 5.3
Qtr 4 2007
4.8 5.2 4.4 3.9 7.7 8.3 6.4 3.0 5.8 5.2
Qtr 1 2008
4.9 5.2 4.0 3.9 7.2 7.8 6.6 2.9 5.7 5.3
Qtr 2 2008
5.4 5.3 4.2 4.1 7.4 7.6 r 6.9 2.8 5.8 5.4
Qtr 3 2008
6.0 5.3 4.2 4.1 7.5 7.4 r 6.8 2.6 5.9 5.9
Qtr 4 2008
6.9 5.6 4.5 4.1 8.0 7.4 7.1 2.8 6.5 6.4
Qtr 1 2009
8.1 6.7 5.3 4.5 8.7 7.7 r 7.4 3.1 7.4 7.1
Qtr 2 2009
9.2 7.5 5.7 5.3 9.3 8.0 r 7.6 3.3 8.2 7.8
Qtr 3 2009
9.6 7.8 5.8 5.5 9.7 8.0 7.9 3.5 8.5 7.9
Jun 2008
5.6 5.3 4.2 4.1 7.4 7.5 (2) 2.5 6.3 5.5
Source: U.S. bureau of labour statistics.
The latest U.S. unemployment rate is 9.7 %. Job losses continue but there are signs of a recovery in manufacturing and some employers are beginning to hire again. We shall see if this is the beginning of a trend.In previous recoveries a drop of 3/10 of a percent month to month is usually that.Some analysts are overly pessimistic and arguing it is simply a one month sample survey error but I doubt it. the rate also fell by 1/10 of a percent in Canada, falling to 8.3 % for January.
My water pipe has thawed out ! Here is some very interesting data on unemployment in ten of the world's leading economies. They show the depth of the global recession. the country that appears to be doing the best of these is the netherlands which has managed to keep its unemployment rate below 4 %, a remarkable accomplishment that reflects its labour market policies.
TABLE 1. Unemployment rates adjusted to U.S. concepts, 10 countries, seasonally adjusted, 2007-2009
United
States Canada Australia Japan France
(1) Germany
(1) Italy
(1) Nether-
lands (1) Sweden United
Kingdom
2007
U.S. Can Aus. Jap. France Germ It. Neth. Swe U.K.
4.6 5.3 4.4 3.9 8.1 8.7 6.2 3.2 6.2 5.4
2008
5.8 5.3 4.2 4.0 7.5 7.5 6.8 2.8 6.2 5.7
Qtr 1 2007
4.5 5.4 4.5 4.0 8.6 9.2 6.2 3.6 6.3 5.5
Qtr 2 2007
4.5 5.2 4.3 3.8 8.2 8.8 6.1 3.2 6.1 5.4
Qtr 3 2007
4.7 5.2 4.3 3.8 8.1 8.5 6.3 3.0 5.8 5.3
Qtr 4 2007
4.8 5.2 4.4 3.9 7.7 8.3 6.4 3.0 5.8 5.2
Qtr 1 2008
4.9 5.2 4.0 3.9 7.2 7.8 6.6 2.9 5.7 5.3
Qtr 2 2008
5.4 5.3 4.2 4.1 7.4 7.6 r 6.9 2.8 5.8 5.4
Qtr 3 2008
6.0 5.3 4.2 4.1 7.5 7.4 r 6.8 2.6 5.9 5.9
Qtr 4 2008
6.9 5.6 4.5 4.1 8.0 7.4 7.1 2.8 6.5 6.4
Qtr 1 2009
8.1 6.7 5.3 4.5 8.7 7.7 r 7.4 3.1 7.4 7.1
Qtr 2 2009
9.2 7.5 5.7 5.3 9.3 8.0 r 7.6 3.3 8.2 7.8
Qtr 3 2009
9.6 7.8 5.8 5.5 9.7 8.0 7.9 3.5 8.5 7.9
Jun 2008
5.6 5.3 4.2 4.1 7.4 7.5 (2) 2.5 6.3 5.5
Source: U.S. bureau of labour statistics.
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