If you’re looking for green shoots, then 9.5% unemployment and the fact that the the rate of unemployment is declining should make you feel pretty good about the economy. If you read Steve Clemons’ America’s Effective Unemployment Rate at 18.7%?,  however, you may get a different perspective of how unemployment is calculated.
In the word of Leo Hindrey:
Here is a June 2009 version of the summary that calculates the Effective Unemployment Rate, which is now 18.70%, and the Effective Number of Unemployed, which is now 30,172,000.
There are currently 14,729,000 officially unemployed workers, as just announced. However, this figure does not include the combined 15,443,000 workers either (1) in the “labor force reserve” because they have abandoned their job searches (i.e., 4,278,000) or (2) underemployed because they are “part-time of necessity” (i.e., 8,989,000) or “otherwise marginally attached” (i.e., 2,176,000).
The effective unemployment rate is therefore 18.70%, instead of the official 9.51%.
Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of workers who are officially unemployed has increased by 7,188,000, while almost twice as many workers – 13,290,000 – have become effectively unemployed. And all the while, we should have been creating around 2,250,000 new jobs (i.e., 18 months times 125,000 jobs per month) just to keep up with population growth.
In June, the number of workers officially unemployed increased 218,000, while the number of workers effectively unemployed actually decreased 35,000.
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