The reserve army of the unemployed is typically proxied by the unemployment rate. This article takes seriously measurement choices in calculating unemployment severity. Should everyone experiencing unemployment (unemployment incidence) be the measure? Should “discouraged” and involuntarily part-time workers be included? It then asks the policy question, to what extent have state and federal unemployment-compensation policies increasingly exacerbated unemployment duress? And, it interrogates the impact of women’s paid work on the burden of unemployment on households.
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