Let's Get Real: Unemployment Rate is 9%

Liars figure and figures lie?

How does the government distort economic 'progress' with its figures?

A look below at what would happen if millions of real people were no longer ignored, but included in the government figures.

Without the distortions, the real unemployment number would be 9%.   PB
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Economic Policy Institute blog post:

...the unemployment rate still understates the weakness of job opportunities.

This is due to the existence of a large pool of “missing workers”—potential workers who, because of weak job opportunities, are neither employed nor actively seeking a job.

In other words, these are people who would be either working or looking for work if job opportunities were significantly stronger.

The number of missing workers has been hovering around 6 million for over a year.

They fell slightly in January, which could be the start of a positive trend.

As the economy gets stronger, I would expect more people to start looking for work.

At this point, the fact remains that there are still 5.8 million missing workers.

And, if the missing workers were actively looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 9.0 percent...
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Link: http://www.epi.org/blog/increasing-labor-force-participation-leads-to-fewer-missing-workers/