In a particular month BLS asks 60,000 randomly selected sample of Americans a few questions to determine the state of the labor market. The following table shows the result:

Number of people who had a job 52,800
Number of people who did not have a job 7,200
Of the number of people who did not have a job, those who were looking for one in the last four months 5,222

The BLS classifies [marginal] people in the sample as marginally attached to labor force.

Question

In a particular month BLS asks 60,000 randomly selected sample of Americans a few questions to determine the state of the labor market. The following table shows the result:

Number of people who had a job	52,800
Number of people who did not have a job	7,200
Of the number of people who did not have a job, those who were looking for one in the last four months	5,222

The BLS classifies [marginal] people in the sample as marginally attached to labor force.

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

We start by restating the data given in the question so we can reason through what is being asked.
- Employed: 52,800
- Unemployed: 7,200
- Total sample: 60,000
- Of those who did not have a job, those who were looking for one in the last four months: 5,222

Next, we classify the groups relevant to marginal attachment to the labor force.
- The number not in the labor force equals total minus those who are employed or unemployed: 60,000 − (52,800 + 7,200) = 0. So in this case, everyone is either employed or unemployed; there is no separate not-in-labor-force group remaining from those figures. However, the phrase "Of the number of people who did not have a job, those who were looking for one in the last four months 5,222" implies a subset within the unemployed category who actively searched for work recently.

To identify marginally attached individuals, we use the standard Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) concept: marginally attached workers are not in the labor force but would like to work and have looked for a job sometime in the past 12 months. In this problem, the data provided splits the unemployed into those who searched in the last four months (5,222) and those who did not search in the last four months (the remainder of the not-yet-employed group within the sample).

Compute the remainder not searching in the last four months among the not-employed: 7,200 (unemployed) − 5,222 (searched in last four months) = 1,978.

This 1,978 represents individuals who did not have a job and were not looking in the last four months, but they could have looked for work at some point in the past 12 months. Those are the people who would be classified as marginally attached to the labor force under the standard definition (not currently in the labor force, but would like to work and have looked for work in the past year).

Now evaluate the single answer option provided: 1978.00.
- This matches the computed 1,978 marginally attached individuals under the reasoning above, where we attribute the 1,978 as those who did not look in the last four months but may have looked at some point in the past 12 months.

Why the other potential interpretations would be incorrect in this setup:
- If one argued that all 5,222 who looked in the last four months are marginally attached, that would ignore the standard broader definition that includes those who looked for work at any time in the past year, not just the last four months.
- If one claimed the marginally attached equals the entire not-in-labor-force group, that would be inconsistent here because the data segment only isolates those who looked in the last four months from the unemployed group, and the total not-in-labor-force count is not directly given as a separate category beyond these numbers.

In summary, the calculation 7,200 − 5,222 = 1,978 identifies the subset of the unemployed who did not look in the last four months, which aligns with marginal attachment in the context of this problem, yielding 1,978.00 as the result.

ECN 001B C01-C06 WQ 2025 Homework 3 - Unemployment

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