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There is no question that some long-term unemployment is caused by government intervention and unions
that interfere with the supply of labor. It is, however, a great mistake (made by some conservative economists) to
attribute most unemployment to government interventions in the economy or to any lack of desire to work on the
part of the unemployed. Unemployment was a serious economic problem in the late nineteenth and early twenti-
eth centuries prior to the welfare state or widespread unionization. Unemployment then, as now, was closely
linked to general macroeconomic conditions. The Great Depression, when unemployment in the United States
reached 25 per cent is the classic example of the damage that collapses in credit can do. Since then, most econo-
mists have agreed that cyclical fluctuations in unemployment are caused by changes in the demand for labor, not
by changes in workers' desires to work, and that unemployment in recessions is involuntary.
Even leaving aside cyclical fluctuations, a large part of unemployment is due to demand factors rather than
supply. High unemployment in Texas in the early eighties, for example, was due to collapsing oil prices. High
unemployment in New England in the early nineties is due to declines in computer and other industries in
which New England specialized. The process of adjustment following shocks is long and painful, and recent
research suggests that even temporary declines in demand can have permanent effects on unemployment as
workers who lose jobs are unable to sell their labor due to a loss of skills or for other reasons. Therefore, most
economists who study unemployment support an active government role in training and retraining workers and
in maintaining stable demand for labor.
Long before Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps advanced the notion of the natural rate of unemploy-
ment (the lowest rate of unemployment tolerable without pushing up inflation) policymakers had contented
themselves with striving for low, not zero, unemployment. Just what constitutes an acceptably low level of un-
employment has been redefined over the decades. In the early sixties an unemployment rate of 4 per cent was
both desirable and achievable. Over time, the unemployment rate drifted upward and, for the most part, has
hovered around 7 per cent. Lately, it has fallen to 6 per cent. I suspect that some of the reduction in the apparent
natural rate of unemployment in recent years has to do with reduced transitional unemployment, both because
fewer people are between jobs and because they are between jobs for shorter periods. A sharply falling dollar
has led to a manufacturing turnaround. Union power has been eroded by domestic regulatory action and inac-
tion, as well as by international competition. More generally, international competition has restrained wage in-
creases in high-wage industries. Another factor making unemployment lower is a decline in the fraction of the
unemployed who are supported by unemployment insurance.
Although the most recent recession has seen increased unemployment, the unemployment rates are still low
by the standard of previous downturns. Recovery should bring some improvement. Over the longer term key
variables affecting unemployment will include unemployment insurance, unionization, and the success of the
economy in handling the reduced demand for unskilled workers caused by technological innovation.
WAGES AND WORKING CONDITIONS
By Stanley Lebergott
CEOs of multinational corporations, exotic dancers, and children with lemonade stands have at least one
thing in common. They all expect a return for their effort. Most workers get that return in a subtle and ever-
changing combination of money wages and working conditions. This article describes how they changed for the
typical U.S. worker during the twentieth century.
Surely the single most fundamental working condition is the chance of death on the job. In every society
workers are killed or injured in the process of production. While occupational deaths are comparatively rare
overall in the United States today, they still occur with some regularity in ocean fishing, the construction of gi-
ant bridges and skyscrapers, and a few other activities.
For all United States workers the number of fatalities per dollar of real (inflation-adjusted) GNP dropped
by 96 per cent between 1900 and 1979. Back in 1900 half of all worker deaths occurred in two industries – coal
mining and railroading. But between 1900 and 1979 fatality rates per ton of coal mined and per ton-mile of
freight carried fell by 97 per cent.
This spectacular change in worker safety resulted from a combination of forces that include safer produc-
tion technologies, union demands, improved medical procedures and antibiotics, workmen's compensation
laws, and litigation. Ranking the individual importance of these factors is difficult and probably would mean
little. Together, they reflected a growing conviction on the part of the American people that the economy was
productive enough to afford such change. What's more, the United States made far more progress in the work-
place than it did in the hospital. Even though inflation-adjusted medical expenditures tripled from 1950 to 1970
and increased by 74 per cent from 1975 to 1988, the nation's death rate declined in neither period. But industry
