Altig et al — How Discouraged Are the Marginally Attached?

Ya gotta love that title. Who is detached psychologically here? Who thinks up these terms anyway? How do the propagate?

What we take from these data is that, as a first pass, when we are talking about discouraged workers' attachment to the labor market, we are talking more generally about the marginally attached. And vice versa. Any differences in the demographic characteristics between discouraged and nondiscouraged marginally attached workers do not seem to materially affect their relative labor market attachment and ability to find work.

Sometimes labels matter. But in the case of discouraged marginally attached workers versus the nondiscouraged marginally attached workers—not so much.

Right, in both cases there are more dogs than bones.


FRBAtalnta  — Macroblog
How Discouraged Are the Marginally Attached?
Dave Altig, executive vice president and research director, John Robertson, a vice president and senior economist, and Ellyn Terry, a senior economic analyst, all of the Atlanta Fed's research department