It's Worse Than They Will Admit

Obama supporters reported with great pride that the unemployment rate was ONLY 9.4% and they proclaimed that recession may be on the rebound. His spokesmen were honest enough to admit that although today's report was fairly good, the unemployment rate could still top 10%.

But if you go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, you can observe all the different ways that unemployment rates are computed. These are the seasonally adjusted figures for July, 2009.

U-1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force.......................5.1

U-2 Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force....6.2

U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)..........9.4

U-4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers...............................9.8

U-5 Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other marginally attached workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.......................10.7

U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers........16.3

NOTE: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.