Comparing Recessions
January 14th, 2009
Alex Tabarrok over at Marginal Revolution gives a great perspective on the current recession in terms of job losses. Everyone keeps claiming this is the worst one ever. Who knows when things will start turning back around, but so far, things aren’t looking any worse than they have before…
It you look at job losses in this recession compared to previous recessions this recession looks very bad but the labor force is much bigger today than in previous recessions. Thus, if you look at the percentage change in employment you get a different story. The Minneapolis Fed crunches the numbers:
and
Of course, this recession is not yet over but this is useful information. We might not like it but recessions are normal.
P.S. Things have been insane since my last blog post. I’ve started two jobs, quit one of them, started a local chapter of America’s Future Foundation, and have gotten engaged. I feel like I’m getting a better hold of things and will hopefully be posting more often (not that it would be very difficult to beat my current pace).
