Reporting on the Growing Ranks of the Unemployed

Editor’s note: Yesterday, Paul wrote a reflection for our Rundown news blog about reporting on unemployment this past year.

It’s been an odd year for anyone who, like your correspondent, makes a living in and around economics. Odd because, for me at least, there’s a version of survivor guilt: The worse the world has gotten, the more interest there’s been in what I have to say. I said to a finance professor friend not long ago, somewhat sheepishly: “We’re counter-cyclical.” (i.e., When the economy goes down, we go up.)

“Yes,” he beamed; “or you could say, we’ve got a negative beta” (like a stock that rises even more than the market sags).

Read the full post at the Rundown.