September 03, 2014
Wonkblog had a post telling readers that the U.S. labor market is doing better in the recovery than the labor market in most other wealthy countries. While this is true if we look at unemployment rates, is far less clear if the focus is employment rates (EPOP), the percentage of the population who is working.
This is true even we control for demographics. The EPOP for prime age men (ages 25-54) in the United States is still down 3.7 percentage points from its pre-recession level. By comparison, in Japan the EPOP for prime age men is up by 2.0 percentage points and in Germany it’s up by 3.3 percentage points.
France has seen a drop in its EPOP from pre-recession levels, but only 0.7 percentage points — still much better than the U.S. In fact, with a drop of in its EPOP for prime age men of 2.7 percentage points, the euro zone as a whole is doing better than the United States, in spite of the inclusion of crisis countries like Spain and Greece with double-digit drops in EPOPS.
In short, the case that the U.S. labor market has fared better than the labor markets in most other wealthy countries is much weaker than this piece indicates.
Thanks to Seth Ackerman for calling this one to my attention.
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