Word: joblessness
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...past dozen years, the official definition of "full employment," at least as a target that the Government should try to reach by fiscal and monetary policy, has been a jobless rate of 4%.* Now, President Nixon's forthcoming budget is expected to set a new target between 4.5% and 4.8%. Meaning: any reduction in unemployment below that level can be accomplished only by overheating the economy and risking serious inflation. In the past two decades, U.S. unemployment has not averaged 4% in any peacetime year, though it went lower during both the Korean and Viet Nam wars. Last month...
...environment, the traditional tools of economic management are no longer enough to keep the economy in good health. Heavy government spending and increases in the money supply that boost demand are more likely to tempt employers to bid up the wages of skilled workers than to hire the unskilled jobless. Cutting back the flow of money to the economy can produce a shallow recession, but as Americans learned in 1970, prices are likely to keep rising rapidly anyway...
Complicating the budgetmakers' problem in striking the proper balance between federal income and spending will be an attempt by the Administration to finally define what it means by "full employment." For twelve years, the official numerical definition has been a 4% jobless rate; Nixonian economists have long grumbled that that goal is now unrealistically low, but they have never set a new target figure, and have often said that there should not be one. To ensure that the budget gives just enough boost to the economy, however, they have concluded that they have to pick a number. Officials...
...passed on for the President's signature by early next month. One amendment provides that if workers lose their jobs because of consequences stemming from the emergency law-a service station closing, for example-they would get full unemployment benefits if they were not eligible for regular jobless payments. Another amendment calls for tax deductions of up to $1,000 for householders who, for the purpose of retaining heat in their homes, put in new insulation, storm windows and the like. The President would be given broad powers to limit temperatures in office buildings and chop working hours...
Painful Eating. Chileans are already feeling the pinch of other new economic policies. The Allende regime had forced industry to hire unneeded workers; many of them have been fired, adding to Chile's high jobless rate. To blunt the inflationary impact of the artificially swollen money supply-Allende had simply printed more and more currency-the new government devalued the escudo by 58%. That action severely chopped into the buying power of all but the wealthiest consumers. In addition, the junta has largely scrapped Allende's heavyhanded controls on prices, which were kept so low in relation...