Big Government and Disguised Unemployment
5th January 2018
Officially, the unemployment rate stands at 4.1 percent, as of December 2017. Unofficially — but in reality — the unemployment rate stands 6.5 percentage points higher at 10.6 percent, where it stood 9 months earlier. While the official unemployment rate has dropped by 5.9 percentage points from its peak in 2009, the real unemployment rate has dropped by only 2.9 percentage points since then.
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In short, if you are 16 years of age and older, not confined to an institution or on active duty in the armed forces, but have not recently made specific efforts to find employment, you are not (officially) a member of the labor force. And if you are not (officially) a member of the labor force because you have given up looking for work, you are not (officially) unemployed — according to the BLS. Of course, you are really unemployed, but your unemployment is well disguised by the BLS’s contorted definition of unemployment.