U.S. unemployment rate hits 9.2 percent in April
I was getting the latest U.S. unemployment figures for a project, and rather than use news reports I went straight to the source: The Bureau of Labor Statistics. The first quick scan seemed to indicate an unemployment rate of 5.0 percent.
But then I actually read the report.
That 5.0-percent figure, which is what most newspapers will, incorrectly, cite, is based on there being 7.63 million unemployed people.
But you have to read past the top of the report. Because that figure doesn’t include some very important people: so-called “marginally attached workers.”
Who are they? They are, the BLS says, “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.”
They include people who have run out of unemployment benefits (”discouraged workers”) and those who “want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.”
So that 5.0 percent figure only counts people who are getting unemployment benefits. When your benefits run out, you’re not considered unemployed.
Thankfully, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also gives the actual unemployment numbers (albeit in an easy-to-miss addendum to the monthly labor report called “Alternative measures of labor underutilization“).
The actual unemployment rate in the United States in April 2008 was 9.2 percent.
Something worth thinking about.











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