@techreport{NBERw0088,
 title = "Three-And-A-Half Million U.S. Employees Have Been Mislaid: Or, An Explanation of Unemployment, 1934-1941",
 author = "Michael R. Darby",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "88",
 year = "1975",
 month = "May",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w0088",
 abstract = {A major conceptual error in the standard BLS and Lebergott unemployment estimates for 1933-1943 is reported. Emergency workers (employees of federal contracyclical programs such as WPA) were counted as unemployed on a normal-jobs-to-be-created instead of job-seekers unemployment definition. For 1934-1941, the corrected unemployment levels are reduced by two to three-and-a half million people and the rates by 4 to 7 percentage points. The corrected data show strong movement toward the natural unemployment rate after 1933 and are very well explained by an anticipations-search model using annual full-time earnings.},
}