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The feds should stop putting out these almost useless employment stats which are abused by both parties. We should start a new set of stats that actually tell us something. Maybe stats that account for all working age Americans:

1. Full time employed
2. Temporary or part-time employed
3. Unemployed and seeking work
4. Unemployed no longer seeking work
4. Those not working and on welfare
5. The independently wealthy who do not need employment

Those categories probably need some refinement, but the feds need to be stopped from their game playing and required to provide meaningful stats concerning the employment/unemployed/living off the government situation.

And maybe some stats to indicate the status of our retirement age population.

And we’d need a category for homemakers, who perform one of the most important tasks.

Unemployment Definition - Abbott and Costello
COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America .
ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible times. It's 9%.
COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?
ABBOTT: No, that's 16%.
COSTELLO: You just said 9%.
ABBOTT: 9% Unemployed.
COSTELLO: Right 9% out of work.
ABBOTT: No, that's 16%.
COSTELLO: Okay, so it's 16% unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, that's 9%...
COSTELLO: Wait a minute. Is it 9% or 16%?
ABBOTT: 9% are unemployed. 16% are out of work.
COSTELLO: IF you are out of work you are unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, you can't count the "Out of Work" as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.
COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!
ABBOTT: No, you miss my point.
COSTELLO: What point?
ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work, can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.
COSTELLO: To whom?
ABBOTT: The unemployed.
COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work.
ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work stopped looking. They gave up. And, if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.
COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment roles, that would count as less unemployment?
ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!
COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work?
ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That's how you get to 9%. Otherwise it would be 16%. You don't want to read about 16% unemployment do ya?
COSTELLO: That would be frightening.
ABBOTT: Absolutely.
COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means they're two ways to bring down the unemployment number?
ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.
COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?
ABBOTT: Correct.
OSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?
ABBOTT: Bingo.
COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to just stop looking for work.
ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like an economist.
COSTELLO: I don't even know what the **** I just said!
And now you know why Obama's unemployment figures are improving!

Never would work, those figures can’t be manipulated. But you are 100% right. Just aggravating why we can’t have straight forward communication on this.

Scrutinize the next unemployment report directly at the http://www.bls.gov without getting it filtered through the attention-deficit media. You’ll see some of those breakdowns there as U4 through U6.

So they get the smaller percentage by dishonestly reducing the numerator of the equation.

The problem is the way they define "no longer seeking work". If you are not getting unemployment, they say you are no longer seeking work. My sister in law has been "no longer seeking work" for almost 2 years now, despite applying to several positions per week.

Her unemployment benefits ran out less than a year and a half after she lost her job due to the hospital where she worked being sold to another entity. She lived in a state where unemployment was low enough that they didn't get the last increment of federal "emergency" benefits. So she got 6 months of state benefits plus 47 weeks of federal benefits. She's been out of work for something like 3 years now.

In my case, I've only had two jobs since getting my master's back in '77. Laid off from both of them. The first under the Clinton Consolidation of the defense industry, and now under the Obama cuts. I've "only" been out of work for about 13 months. I'll run out of unemployment benefits in about 4 more months, if I haven't found something by then. That's 6 months of state benefits and 47 weeks (about 10.5 months) of federal benefits. That "benefit" is less than 1/4 of my previous salary. And it's taxable, as is my severance pay from the lay off.