Following is the time series plot for the monthly U.S. Unemployment rate (%) from January 2003 to June 2013. These data have been seasonally adjusted (meaning that the seasonal component has already been removed).

a) What time series components do you observe in this series?
b) Develop a 6-month and 12-month moving average model for this series.
c) Fit a single exponential smoothing model 1a = .72 to this series.
d) Comment on how these models do with these data.

9.34 - 8.09 6.84 5.59 2000 2006 2007 2009 2011 2013 Year