[magooey]

5.5 percent unemployment is debatable. There are multiple Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment indices, and comparing across countries is comparing apples to oranges. While BLS picks one of the low indices as the officially released unemployment rate, U-6 may be more comparable internationally. Check http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm where the May 2008 unemployment rate for the USA is 9.4%.

[null and void]

Yep. If you've been out long enough to exhaust your unemployment insurance benefits, you drop off the radar, and are no longer counted as unemployed.

Sort of like how food and fuel costs aren't part of "core inflation"...

[MuttTheHoople]

Here in Mississippi, I know unemployment is low. Why?

Service is still bad at fast food places.

The "Will Work for Food" guys holding signs out on street corners still won't work for food.

As fat, ugly, and out-of-shape as I am, I still have a part-time job at a Fitness Center. Fitness Centers are the height of "disposable income". Plus, if the economy was bad, there'd be buff guys and built women lining up to try to take my job....and they aren't.

[riverdawg]

The BLS publishes a table of internationally comparable unemployment rates, which take into account differences across countries in definitions and concepts. So does the OECD.

The “official” unemployment rate doesn’t take into account whether or not you are receiving or have exhausted unemployment benefits. A person’s classification is based on a series of questions about his or her “major activity” during the survey reference week.