This apparently refers to the people registered as unemployed (and who keep registering every week), versus people who do not get a regular paycheck. I am not sure if the latter statistics exists for the US.
In the United States, these official statistics are based on sample surveys. There are distinct survey questions about labor force participation and the more narrowly defined concept of "unemployment." Description of the methodology used in the United States is found here:
The United States federal definition of unemployment and labor force participation are
"Who is counted as unemployed?
"Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.
"Workers expecting to be recalled from layoff are counted as unemployed, whether or not they have engaged in a specific jobseeking activity. In all other cases, the individual must have been engaged in at least one active job search activity in the 4 weeks preceding the interview and be available for work (except for temporary illness).
"Who is not in the labor force?
"Persons not in the labor force are those who are not classified as employed or unemployed during the survey reference week.
"Labor force measures are based on the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years old and over. (Excluded are persons under 16 years of age, all persons confined to institutions such as nursing homes and prisons, and persons on active duty in the Armed Forces.) The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. The remainder--those who have no job and are not looking for one--are counted as 'not in the labor force.' Many who are not in the labor force are going to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the labor force."
right on. isnt that what the participation rate is about? those numbers tell a much more interesting story than the unemployment numbers and correlate strongly with education level
Depends what you are looking for. Do you want the number of people without jobs (including children, retired, hospitalized, etc.) or the number of people capable of work but without?
there are 239,146 people aged 16 and over in the US who are civilians and not in institutions (like prisons or hospitals), of which only 139,674 are employed.
That leaves 99472 unemployed. Which is about a 42% unemployment rate.
That's not a particularly useful statistic. How much of that 42% is kids 16-18 in high-school, people in college 18-22, people in grad school 22-25, the retired?
Together that's roughly 70 million people who are mostly being counted in your "unemployed" figure that shouldn't be included.
That's not even including women who don't work. There is still a delta of ~13% b/w male and female labor force participation rates. They're 122 million women age 16 and over in the US. That's probably another ~10m who shouldn't be included in your unemployed figure.
The above estimates double-count: those enrolled in school who work, elderly who work, etc, but is much more realistic than your figure.
You have a point there, but I wouldn't be quite so sanguine. Look at the different participation rates of graduates and those without a HS diploma. The difference is huge, and I think it tells us something about the real unemployment rate.
Another issue is that those counted as employed include a large number of underemployed, i.e people forced to work part time because they can't find more work.
You do a good job of segmenting the population of unemployed people in to various groups, but you make not even a single argument for why they shouldn't be counted as unemployed.
For instance, you say, "women who don't work ... shouldn't be included in your unemployed figure." Why not?
