The Real Unemployment Rate

Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate has risen to 9.7%. No one doubts the inaccuracy of this number, but there’s almost no way to know what the real unemployment rate is.

In order to be included in the official unemployment rate kept by the bureau, a worker must have been actively looking for a job at some point in the preceding four weeks. Those workers are included in the 9.7% figure. The problem is that perhaps millions of workers have stopped looking and aren’t counted. That doesn’t mean they’re not unemployed. It doesn’t mean that don’t want a job. It means that after months of searching without any success, the frustration, disappointment and rejection have become unbearable.

In a comprehensive article about these unemployed, uncounted workers, the New York Times focuses on four people from four different parts of the country — different backgrounds, job histories and ages — who are very unemployed and are, according to the Times, “hidden casualties” of the current recession. The article sheds a somewhat different light on the recent government drum beat of the economy’s improvement.