Day Lilies on Shellpot Creek

Employment-Population Ratio - a scarier way to look at unemployment

The Bureau of labor Statistics compiles a stat called the Employment-Population Ratio that is the number of people working of the available workforce, defined as people 16 and over. I am sure some of those folks are not working because they wouldn't otherwise, but in the current climate many have no choice. As has been reported repeatedly, the 9.2% unemployment underestimates the number of people unemployed because after a long enough time people just leave the workforce and are not counted in the number. The chart below shows the current ratio is 58.2%, that's the lowest Employment-Population ratio since 1984.

A longer time series shows the history since 1948.

It's been lower in the past, but that is a generation ago. I personally would like Congress and the President to start working on jobs now.

(Unstable Isotope at Delaware Liberal got me thinking about this)

Fireworks at Greenville Country Club on July 1st

Finally uploaded a movie of the fireworks we attended on July 1st. I certainly haven't gotten the hang of taking pictures of fireworks with my iPhone 4, but the video turned out well.



Enjoy!

Dining room table is much longer than we thought.

Our 42" round dining apparently extends all the way to 92"!  We have two 10" leaves and so had only opened it that far.  We thought that's as far as it could open.

Lynn was investigating longer tables because we were thinking of purchasing one to fit ten for Christmas Eve dinner.  She saw a similar table design where the pedestal separated to let the table extend farther yet still remain stable.  That got us experimenting with our own.

Turns out that with a little careful coaxing and a rubber mallet the table extends pretty far.  It is the farthest we have extended it in the ten years we've owned it and given the lack of leaves as far as it's been extended for decades before that.

Lynn is investigating the correct wood to roughly match the leaves we have, which already don't match the table and are probably not original to the table.  We are thinking white oak.  

This discovery has let us stave off purchasing a new table for a while.  It's like we already have a new table.