The major goals of economic stabilization policy are a full-employment level of real output and a stable price level. Over the first five years of the current economic expansion which began in early 1981, the goal of full employment dominated discussions of policy. In January 1966 the interim target goal of 4 per cent unemployment uvas reached. Since early 1966 most studies of unemployment have been concerned with unemployment by specific classes or groups rather than total unemployment. At an aggregate level, the problems of achieving a stable price level have increasingly dominated the attention of the policymakers and the public.