January 18, 2015
A Washington Post article on President Obama’s new willingness to push an economic agenda contrasted U.S. economic performance with “the anemic economies of Europe and Japan.” It’s not clear on what basis Japan’s economy is supposed to be anemic compared with the U.S.
Its unemployment rate stood at 3.5 percent in November, the most recent month for which data are available. Its employment rate has risen by two full percentage points since the end of 2012 when its new government shifted towards Keynesian expansionary policies. By comparison, the employment rate has risen by just 0.8 percentage points over the same period in the United States (it did rise by another 0.3 percentage points in the fourth quarter). The 1.2 percentage point difference for the period for which we have data from both countries would correspond to another 3 million people being employed in the United States.
It is also worth noting that the employment rate in Japan is 1.7 percentage points above its pre-recession level. In the United States it is more than 3.0 percentage points below its pre-recession level.
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