Doubts about the official jobless rate

By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer/

Something in Friday’s employment data won't add up.

For the past 50 years, it’s been widely assumed that the jobless rate can’t fall much unless the economy expands faster than its normal pace. Anything less only creates enough jobs to keep up with the growth of the labor force -- not absorb the millions left unemployed by the latest downturn.

But over the past six months, the U.S. unemployment rate has surprised economists by rapidly falling to 8.3 percent from 9.1 percent even as the economy has yet to get back up to pre-recession speed. According to the textbooks, that’s not supposed to happen.

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Doubts about the official jobless rate have prompted some economists to turn to an alternate measure: the employment-to-population ratio, which paints a more sobering picture of the employment outlook.

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