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Comment by AngrySkillzz | Hacker News Reader

Sorry but that's not true at all. You are counted as unemployed if you do not have a job and are actively looking for work. There is no "cut-off." Look up the definition at the BLS, there is no excuse for spreading this crap through laziness.

If you stop looking for jobs you are not considered unemployed as someone not actively seeking work is not considered to be in the labor force. That is a different issue entirely and you will have to look at a different statistic. There are different types of "unemployment rate" and maybe what you want is U-4 or U-5 which include discouraged workers. Either way you can not expect a single number to encapsulate something as large and complex as the US labor market.

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    Either way you can not expect a single number to encapsulate something as large and complex as the US labor market.

This is true, but part of the problem is with the media and government communications often failing to engage with this fact properly, and instead focusing on a single metric which is often misinterpreted.

It depends on your media. On NPR whenever I hear unemployment discussed they almost always immediately follow it with changes in wage and the number of people who are not seeking employment. This doesn't give any particular number a "things are getting worse or better" black and white consequence but that is why I like getting my news there.

I do not disagree with you, but at least for me, the most telling is the labor force participation. The fact that we have a close-to-a-record number of people not being productive is alarming.

Oh, and I am not buying the "demographics" narrative (baby boomers retiring, not interested in working), because a lot of 60+ folks need to work, because they don't have enough savings.

"You are counted as unemployed if you do not have a job and are actively looking for work."

Don't you actually have to register with the government and tell them you are without a job and looking for work in order to count as unemployed?

A lot more people could be without a job and looking for work without having told the government about it. So the government figures likely underestimate true unemployment, even if we ignore those people who are without work and have given up hope of finding a job and so have stopped looking, and those people who are without work and don't want to work or can't work for some reason.

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