Real Unemployment Rate

The Real Unemployment Rate
The real unemployment rate that the government puts out every week does not reflect the true unemployment rate in the United States. There are many people who should be considered unemployed but are not. Some people are not even counted in the labor force when they should be. These people include those who have given up looking for a job for four weeks straight because they are discouraged as well as people who are in the armed forces. I personally thing that both of these sets of people should be considered in the labor force; those who gave up looking for a job and unemployed and those in the armed forces as employed because they are technically working for the government. On the other hand you have people who are considered employed when in reality they should be considered unemployed. These people include those that are employed as part time, those that volunteer for more than ten hours per week, and those who had a job but got laid off and got another job but earn a lot less than they use to. Because these people are considered employed, the employment rate is lower than it should be
The unemployment rate that the government reports each week is called the U3 unemployment rate. This number does not count discouraged unemployed workers how have not looked for work in the past four weeks because they believe no jobs are available. The real unemployment rate is the U6. This number includes those marginally attached to the labor force and the under-employed; those who have accepted part-time jobs when they are really looking for full-time employment. Short-term discouraged workers are also included in this number. Many people predict that the U6 number is anywhere between 14-23 percent. However, one source said that the unemployment rate is around 62% which is surprisingly high but not as high as it was in 2000, 67%. Overall, I think there are many jobs out there and people need to look for them and not become discouraged.