Unemployment Rates by Education, and Education Premium

Below, the unemployment rates over time for four education groups (click to enlarge).

We might also be interested in the unemployment "premium" (neglecting selection) that college-educated have over other education groups.  One way to do this is looking at the difference in unemployment rates over time (equivalent to making the purple line above the new "zero."  This is displayed graphically below (click to enlarge).

Interesting to note that selection arguments about the premium get a bit more tricky when we talk about rapid changes in unemployment for large stocks of educated people.  Either way, this recession moved the College premium from less than high school from around 5% lower unemployment rates to around 10% lower unemployment rates.