The myth of the
unemployment rate is easy to forget, and it seems like the Adminstration and the press wants us to forget.
This morning, we learned that the economy added 192,000 jobs as the unemployment rate ticked down to 8.9%. That put the number of unemployed Americans at 13.7 million -- but this doesn't tell the entire story. This number does not take into account Americans who, for various reasons, are not considered in the labor force. Some of them still want jobs right now, even by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' standards. What would the picture look like if we include these Americans?
For starters, how many were there? In February, BLS estimates 6.4 million Americans want jobs now, but are not considered part of the workforce. They are not included in the tally of unemployed Americans.
If you add these additional workers into the number of unemployed, you find that just over 20 million Americans want a job right now, but do not have one. That's obviously a much grimmer picture than the 13.7 million that the headline number suggests -- it's nearly 50% higher.
This new calculation of Americans who want a job also shows a much larger portion of the nation struggling to find work, compared to the 8.9% unemployment rate. The portion of Americans who want a job was 12.6% in February.
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