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The Unemployment Rate
Figuring out the current unemployment rate is not an easy task. One may think that those
received unemployment insurance are the unemployed and the rate is calculated based on them; but
what about those who don’t qualify or never apply? Imagine going to each person living in the United
States every month to see if they are employed or not. Aside from being nearly impossible it would be
very costly to do such a thing. In order to calculate from such a large population such detailed
information, the government runs a survey called the Current Population Survey. This survey takes
about 2000 geographical areas and randomly samples from each area to calculate the unemployment
rate. The survey targets 60,000 households which equals about 110,000 individuals. This randomized
sampling is what researchers use to get very close to the actual unemployment rate. Households are
interviewed four consecutive months and placed on hold for eight months and re interviewed another
