Chapter 4, Problem 11RE

Unemployment Rates Recessions are an economic phenomenon that are often defined as two consecutive quarters of reduced national output. One measure to assess the severity of a recession is the rate of unemployment. The table shows the number of employed and unemployed residents of the United States at the peak of each recession (in thousands).

	Recession of 1982	Recession of 2009
Employed	98.9	130.1
Unemployed	11.3	14.5
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

1. a. Determine the unemployment rate for each recession. Which recession appears worse as measured by unemployment rate? Note: Unemployment rate Unemployment rate = unemployed/(employed + unemployed). The data in the table above do not account for level of education. The following data show the unemployment rate by level of education for each recession.

1. b. Determine the unemployment rate for each level of education for both recessions.
2. c. Draw a bar graph of the conditional distribution from part (b).
3. d. Write a report that suggests the recession of 2009 is worse than that of 1982.