COLUMN: IN OUR OPINION

The Project for Excellence in Journalism recently completed a study that found that the media's reliance on government data in economic reporting distorts the news, giving Americans a false picture of their economic conditions. Because government reports can lag

three months or more behind current conditions, the study concluded, the media often finds itself declaring things are gloomy when they have in fact begun to pick up, or that conditions are just fine at a time when many consumers are facing job losses and higher prices for just about everything.

Labor Day, which after all originated as a holiday to honor the working men and women of this nation, affords an opportunity to take a long view of employment trends.Worker productivity, trade balances, deficits, interest rates, home ownership, inflation and a myriad of other yardsticks are used to measure the overall health of our economy, and a small army of statisticians labors incessantly to explain how and when various government agencies and the Federal Reserve should - or should not - commit acts of economic intervention.

But there are few measures more fundamental than that of whether more or fewer Americans are working.

By that measure, in spite of all the talk of economic gloom, the Bush administration's shortcomings, and what Barack Obama or John McCain might do on the economic front, the simple reality is that Labor Day 2008 finds the American worker in strong standing relative to any time in the past 30 years.

In order to avoid the short-term distortions that can plague economic reporting, examine the accompanying chart, which shows seasonally adjusted unemployment rates in the United States from 1978 to the present, as compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Yes, the unemployment rate, in both Massachusetts and the nation, has crept up in recent months as economic activity has slowed. But consider: Except for a few months in 2003, however, that rate has remained below 6 percent since August 1994, 14 years ago. Moreover, it has been nearly a quarter-century since the nation's unemployment rate exceeded 8 percent.

Viewed more positively, the percentage of nation's adult population that is employed rose steadily following World War II, from about 55 percent in the immediate post-war period to around 62.5 percent today.

The addition of many women to the work force and the diversification and explosion of jobs in the high technology, service, financial services, and information technology industries has permitted the nation to retain a strong position in the global economy, while helping Americans to an unprecedented era of prosperity, including better health, longer lives, and luxuries unimagined by our parents' and grandparents' generations.

It is in the nature of Americans to always seek better ways to live and work, and our state and nation must not rest upon the laurels earned by previous generations. But long-term data are immune to party politics and clearly show that, despite any cyclical woes, America remains a nation that works.

ART: GRAPH

CUTLINE: U.S. unemployment rate

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/DON LANDGREN JR.