New Jobless Cycle Begins
We are now in what may be called the first stage of the sixth unemployment cycle since World War II, or the second unemployment cycle in the Nixon-Ford period. If allowed to continue, It definitely points to 7.5 per cent unemployment by mid-1975, remaining at a high level through July 1976 when President Ford promised to celebrate victory over inflation and unemployment.</br></br>By means of the chart, let me call attention to two features in our unemployment experience over the past 25 years not generally noted. One Is that we have had a long underlying unemployment cycle from the end of the Truman administration to the begin ning of the Nixon administration, or from tiie first quarter of 19511 to the first quarter of 1969.</br></br>Superimposed on this long-term unemployment cycle and the one now emerging are five short-term ones during five recessions.</br></br>The Truman unemployment cycle of 1949-50 advanced to its peak of about 7 per cent and returned to 3 per cent in about a year and a half.</br></br>The first Eisenhower cycle of 1953-54 reached its peak at about 6 per cent in about one year and returned to about 4 per cent, also in about a year and a half.