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One of the most important economic indices used to measure the state of macroeconomics is the Unemployment rate.
Definition: The jobless rate is the percentage of people, in the labor force and in a particular country, that are willing to work but are not currently working.
Each country's main goal is to decrease its unemployment rate to move closer to the full employment. Many economists believes that a low unemployment rate could result in an increase in inflation. The unemployment rate below which the inflation could have bad effect on the economic is called the natural unemployment rate or natural rate of unemployment.
The way the jobless rate is calculated differs from a country to another. Historically, the United States had lower unemployment rates that most countries in the European Union, and this doesn't necessarily mean that the real jobless rate in the U.S. is lower than what it is in European countries. This could be the result of how the United States and European countries calculates their jobless rate.
This Jobless rate item downloads historical seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for over 60 years. The data starts in January 1948 and it is updated monthly.
The jobless rate historical data is downloaded for the United States, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.
Recently, during the recession, the Jobless rate chart showed a big increase of nearly 5.5% in three years. The jobless rate increased from approximately 4% in January 2007 to 10% in December 2009.
Here are some other important economic indices for the United States: Initial Jobless Claims - Historical data item downloads the 4-Week moving average of the jobless claims or the number of person who have filed for unemployment benefits. This data is also retrieved from the U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Producer Price Index - PPI item downloads PPI historical data. PPI is considered to be an inflationary indicator. Consumer Price Index - Historical data item gets CPI data. Percent change in the CPI is used as a measure of the inflation rate.