Friday, July 8, 2011

UEMPMEAN - UEMPMED: Structural Unemployment



So using the mean and median weeks of unemployment time series data from the Fed FRED, here is what the spread between the mean time and median time looks like... so as mean times increase relative to median times, this would seem to indicate either a larger sub-group of long term unemployed, or that sub-group is experiencing longer durations of unemployment, or both.

What changed in the 2001 recession that resulted in a higher floor for the spread?

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

US Regular Gasoline Price - Perspective


Courtesy of the EIA data set on the monthly average price for regular gasoline, above is a plot of the 12 month moving average...