Unemployment is NOT worse in Europe than in the U.S.

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal published the transcript of a conversation between Andy Stern, president of Service Employees International Union, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Paul Gigot, editor of the paper’s editorial page, moderated the discussion. Here’s the part that jumped out at me:

MR. GIGOT: You’ve said Europe does a better job by its workers than the U.S. has done. But one of the consequences of the way they structure their economy is a high structural unemployment rate—7 percent, 8 percent, even in good times. Is that something you’re willing to live with?

He’s referring to Stern’s past praise for the universal healthcare, widespread unionization and stronger business regulation found in many European countries. All those burdensome social benefits, sending unemployment into the stratosphere.

Except not quite. While France, Germany, Italy and Spain did have higher unemployment than the United States in the late 1990s, several other European nations did not, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. Now, there are only three European countries among the major OECD nations with higher unemployment than the United States. (The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development standardizes unemployment figures, because different countries measure unemployment in different ways.)

According to the OECD data, U.S. unemployment is 8.5 percent. That beats Spain, Ireland and France, but not Germany, the United Kingdom or Italy.

That’s right. Italy has more people working than we do.

Hmmmm …