Our rate here in this county is almost 13%. I don’t know if this only counts people actually receiving unemployment benefits or not, but supposedly it does not include several groups it should. One is people trying to return to the workforce after not working for years. Examples would be stay at home parents whose children are now grown. Or people who, because of economic reasons, have to return to work. I don’t think it includes people who have stopped looking for work, although I don’t know how that is tracked.

Supposedly if you count all the people here without a job that are looking or want to work, the rate is closer to 20%! Then if you include people who are in a job they would change out of in a better economy, and people who are working part time that want full time work, supposedly this number reaches close to 50%.

If these facts/assumptions I have read about are correct, what possible relevance does the govt’s number have to the reality of the workforce?