Correcting this misclassification and counting those who have left the labor force since last February as unemployed would boost the unemployment rate to close to 10 percent in January (figure 6). Unfortunately, even those grim statistics understate the decline in labor market conditions for the most economically vulnerable Americans.
Aggregate employment has  5  Published monthly data on labor force participation begin in 1948. -5declined 6.5 percent since last February, but the decline in employment for workers in the top quartile of the wage distribution has been only 4 percent, while the decline for the bottom quartile has been a staggering 17 percent (figure 7).