Benchmark
Trump's Guide to Weakness in the U.S. Labor Market
Report lays out figures beyond main jobless rate
Trump speaks at the Detroit Economic Club, on Aug. 8, 2016.
Photographer: Sean Proctor/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Democrats typically cite the current unemployment rate of 4.9 percent as evidence of significant economic improvement since the last recession, but a report this week from the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research says otherwise.
Author and research associate Nick Buffie looked beyond the main jobless rate to more than a half-dozen measures including prime-age employment, labor compensation and the rate at which workers are quitting their jobs. When you factor these in, "the economy is weaker than the unemployment rate says and we haven’t fully recovered from the recession yet," Buffie says.