There is this "other" economy with high unemployment and a very low and still-declining employment-to-population ratio.
Worse, the employment-to-population ratio among this group is only 54%, as compared with 62% in the general population.
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Since then, the working population has aged, so the employment-to-population ratio will be persistently lower even in good times.
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The employment-to-population ratio for people aged 20 to 24 has fallen to 60.1% from 67.1% over the past three years.
To get to a civilian employment-to-population ratio equal to that in 2000, we would have to gain some 18 million jobs.
The unemployment rate has dropped more than 40% of the way back to its pre-recession level, but the employment-to-population ratio is closer to its trough than its pre-recession peak.
The unemployment rate in sand states remains higher than in the country as a whole (10.7% vs. 8% according to Goldman), while the employment-to-population ratio is lower (55.8% vs. 59.3%).
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One bright spot in the Labor Department jobs release, at least, was the slight rise in both the labor force participation rate and employment-to-population ratio, the first increases since February.
The employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) was unchanged at 58.6 percent, exactly the same as the rate in February of 2012 and just 0.4 percentage points above the low hit in the summer of 2011.
The economist makes the argument that post-crisis GDP growth rates are about 11.9% off of historical standards, which, along with the employment-to-population ratio, suggest the current macroeconomic environment is a lot more challenging than in other recessions and will need the intervention of government to recover.
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While the unemployment rate remains steady at 9.5%, the employment-population ratio continues to fall each month.
In 2007, before the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing recession, the employment-population ratio had fallen to 63%.
By November 2004, the employment-population ratio had improved to 62.5% from its low point of 62.0%, and total employment had increased by 2.6 million.
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