How Widely Used?

clipped from blogs.cfr.org There are a number of data sets seeking to capture joblessness in that period. (Remember, they didn’t have all the tools we have today.) The annual data set which I used in THE FORGOTTEN MAN, and which Dr Krugman deems misleading, originates with the government Bureau of Labor Statistics and the great scholar of employment, Stanley Lebergott. Richard Vedder of Ohio University actually addressed/broke out employment month by month using the same data, so sometimes TFM cited him. Anyhow these data show average annual unemployment in the twenty percent range for a number of years – 1933, 1934, 1935. At points in 1937 or 1938, unemployment gets back to 20%, which I mention in TFM. These “misleading” data, Lebergott/BLS, are widely used. How widely used? Even by the President-elect, apparently. Mr Obama, talking on Sixty Minutes spoke about unemployment in 1932 and 1933. Mr Obama said: “Well keep in mind that 1932, 1933, the unemployment rate was 25 percent, inching up to 30 percent.”