It's Unemployment, Stupid! Why Perceptions about the Job Situation Hurt the Liberals in the 1997 Election

Abstract

The Liberals almost lost their parliamentary majority in June 1997. This article argues that preceptions of the unemployment situation hurt the Liberals and cost them the support of almost three percentage points of votes. We examine the reasons why Canadians did not render a more positive judgement on the job situation despite a decrease of the official unemployment rate in Canada during the Liberal mandate. The results of this study raise a number of questions about voters' behaviour, about the diffusion and penetration of both general and economic information within the electorate, about the criteria with which voters use to judge governments, and on the incentives these governments might have to manufacture political business cycles.