Comment · Tue, November 5, 2013
/u/thesprunk explains how normal US unemployment figures are bogus, and that the reality is bleaker.
What they were answering
thatsumoguy07 · 19 points
But as /u/sesamestreetgang stated, U6 was 10.1% before the crash and 13.7% now. So it's not any worse than we already know. U6 and U3 have moved up and down in almost unison, meaning it's just as bad as we expected, not worse.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
I think he was trying to touch on the issue that we are at our lowest employment rate as a percentage of population in the last 30 years. So even though the various calculations for unemployment have dropped, the percentage of people with a job in the US fell rapidly after the crash, and has not recovered.
You can see it in this graph of employment rate as a percentage of population.
From here: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000