Unemployment & Underemployed Level

Tonight I decided to look at a broader measure of unemployment over the last 12 months. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that "In November, 2008 The US had 6.7% unemployment, it does not include in that metric those people who are too "Discouraged" about their job prospects and have stopped looking, and it does not include those individuals who are "Underemployed" and working part-time jobs, when they'd rather work a full time job.



If you look at Data for December 2007, there was 7.3mm "Unemployed" and the Unemployment Rate was 5.0%---If you add in the Discouraged and "UnderEmployed" the broader-unemployment jumps to 12.4mm or 8.5%.

If you look at Data for November 2008, there was 10.0mm "Unemployed" and another 8.0mm people who were either "Discouraged" or "Under-employed"---With the reported level of unemployment being 6.7% in November 2008, I calculate that the broader-unemployment in November 2008 is actually closer to 12.1%