Quote Originally Posted by .blank cd View Post
I'll take them with a grain of salt, but the BLS numbers are about as accurate as we're gonna get.

The BLS numbers are as accurate as you will find, but everyone uses the wrong number. We should be going off the U6 number, not the U3 number. The U3 doesnt even give a decent idea as to what the unemployment rate is.

Sept 2012:
U3 - 7.8
U6 - 14.7

Oct 2012:
U3 - 7.9
U6 - 14.6


The U6 rate includes: Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.


Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.