job loss and raise the national unemployment rate. However, this issue brief shows that the experience of 22 countries … is no statistically significant relationship between national unemployment rates and legally-mandated access to paid sick …

From the early 1990s through the peak of the last business cycle, relatively low U.S. unemployment rates seemed to make … (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other international organizations all praised the U.S. unemployment … shows that in the current economic crisis, the U.S. unemployment rate ranks 4th to last among the major OECD countries. …

In 1982, the United States experienced the highest annual unemployment rate since the Great Depression – 9.7 percent …. In principle, that rate is directly comparable to the 8.1 percent seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for February 2009 …, and suggests that current unemployment is still not as bad as it was in 1982. The official unemployment rate, however …