N Andrews: Unemployment and Debt

JzB analyzes a prediction regarding the employment/population ratio.

My mind goes to comparable disturbances. I want to look at the 1930s and before.

Oh. FRED goes back to 1948. Crap. Curse their data integrity.

Google turns up a Scribd file by N. Andrews: Historical Unemployment In Relation to Today. Just a few pages, lots of pictures, satisfactory spelling and punctuation, suits me fine. (Actually, I'm wanting to know more about N. Andrews.)

Andrews' first graph shows U3 and U6 unemployment back to 1900. I grabbed that graph to display it and, well look at that, it's a two-graph set:

Andrews writes:

Recent news portrays our current jump in unemployment as a serious event in the marketplace. But from a historical perspective unemployment, whether measured by U3 or U6, while high, is still lower then the two previous post-WWII peaks in the 70's and 80's. Another factor in the degree of harm a given level of unemployment causes in a society is to what degree the majority of the population is leveraged in the form of consumer debt.

Not my doing. I'm just reporting what I found. Andrews brings debt into the picture. Just like I do.

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At The Economic Populist, a review of the N Andrews paper.

Evidently, it's Nelson Andrews.