85211072
good little article in the NYtimes about unemployment
Besides the obvious implications of an increased unemployment rate on Bush’s political futre, I found this to be the most interesting part.
The biggest benefit from rapid growth coupled with low unemployment rates may well have been the first significant increases in wages and family incomes since the 1960’s. Over all, family incomes, for example, rose far more rapidly from 1996 to 2000 than they did from 1991 to 1996 or even from 1984 to 1989 � the last five years of the fairly rapid expansion under Ronald Reagan. In particular, incomes for lower-income families rose as rapidly as for other income groups for the first time since the 1970’s. In other words, income inequality stopped widening at last.
Family incomes at the 20th percentile � low-income families who earned more than 20 percent but less than 80 percent of all families � began to rise as rapidly as family incomes for those in the 80th percentile in the mid-1990’s. In fact, incomes rose at about the same pace for all income levels in these years.
By contrast, in the early 1990’s, when the unemployment rate averaged around 6.5 percent and economic growth was sluggish, family incomes grew much more slowly at all levels � about half as fast. But incomes for lower-end families grew the most slowly.