IN CONCLUSION: WEEK OF OCTOBER 7th

Recap

This week we discussed the labor force and unemployment. We learned that the details are buried in the numbers and in the way that the labor force is defined. For example, we saw that the official unemployment rate may in fact be underestimated, as a result of excluding discouraged workers from the computation. Similarly, part-time workers seeking full-time employment may be underutilized and appear to be unemployed. Yet, they are counted as employed and therefore, do not figure into the unemployment rate.

It is important to recognize these nuances as it becomes easy to fall prey to rhetoric or politicians' ignorance or simply misleading remarks.

Looking Ahead

We next turn our attention to inflation. This is our third major economic issue and it pertains to the changing level of prices throughout the economy. You will be introduced to terms such as inflation, deflation, disinflation, demand-pull and supply-push inflation.

You should all be aware of the term considering how much it is being used right now primarily because we had been living through a period of high inflation that we haven't seen in the United States since the late 70's and early 80s. We are not alone in the U.S., as other countries in the world had experienced the same thing.