Madam Speaker, I have been reading through the budget and paying careful attention, but I have some questions about the base statistics on which your work is done.
Most specifically, I am interested in what is commonly reported in the U.S. as the natural rate of unemployment. The U.S. Federal Reserve says that the current natural rate of unemployment in the U.S. is about 6%. Former finance ministers here have said it is about 8%.
What natural rate of unemployment are you basing the budget projections on, and can you tell me whether that natural rate is increasing or decreasing?