Unemployment claims, continuing and initial, percent of workforce
Unemployment claims, continuing and initial, long term
Unemployment claims, continuing and with all factors, long term
Temporary employment, long term
Unemployment rate type definitions
U1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force
U2 Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force
U3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (the 'official' unemployment rate)
U4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force
U5 Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other marginally attached workers as a percent of the civilian labor force
U6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force(the closest to real unemployment, and the one that should be used when comparing to other countries)
U7 U6 plus a broader definition that includes all "discouraged workers". Dropped in 1994.
Adj The "adjustments" that were done during the '90s Clinton adminstration that defined away part of a class of people called "discouraged workers" (as documented by John Williams)add at least another 1-2% to the U6 unemployment rate. The actual raw number of uncounted "discouraged workers" was around 1.3 million as of early 2007. This also used to be known as the U-7 measure of unemployment.
Source
Many More Are Jobless Than Are Unemployed (April 2008 article in the NY Times)
John Williams unemployment chart with seasonally adjusted numbers
The birth/death model, more BS from the BLS
1982 definitions of U-1 through U-7, and note that there were massive definition changes made in 1994 by the BLS. Our various charts are not directly comparable but are quite useful, much like any model.
People are classified as unemployed per U-3 if they meet all of the following criteria: They had no employment during the reference week; they were available for work at that time; and they made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week.
"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some models are useful."
-- George E.P. Box (Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin)
The CPI and lagged unemployment link
Withholding, corporate and individual
Gold price target estimates
Put call ratio
Savings
"Personal saving is equal to personal income less personal outlays and personal taxes; it may generally be viewed as the portion of personal income that is used either to provide funds to capital markets or to invest in real assets such as residences." (Source)
