I ran the numbers comparing January, 2009, to April, 2012:
January 2009:
Civilian labour force: 153,716m
Employed: 142,099m
Unemployed: 11,616m
Not in labour force: 81,023m
Not in the labour force, but who want a job now: 5,682m
Participation Rate: 65.5%
Average Weeks Unemployed: 19.8
Unemployment rate: 7.6%
April 2012
Civilian labour force: 154,365m
Employed: 141,865m
Unemployed: 12,500m
Not in labour force: 88,419m
Not in the labour force, but who want a job now: 6,299m
Participation rate: 63.6%
Average Weeks Unemployed: 39.1
Unemployment rate: 8.1%
Change:
Civilian labour force: + .422%
Employed: - .1647%
Unemployed: + 7.61%
Not in labour force: + 9.13%
Not in the labour force, but who want a job now: +10.86%
Participation rate: - 2.9%
Average Weeks Unemployed: + 97.47%
Unemployment rate: + 6.6%
Change in nonfarm payrolls, January 2009 – April 2012
Total: +0.5%
Total private: +0.6%
Goods producing: -7.9%
Manufacturing: -5.5%
Service providing, private: +1.0%
Government: -0.1%
Federal government: +1.0%
The number of actual employed persons fell by 169,000.
Note that the biggest and steepest plunge has taken place since the Obama recovery started in June 2009. The U-6 rate held steady in April nonetheless at 14.5%, even with the increased exodus of workers from the workforce.
Real unemployment rate: "11.6%. Reason for difference: organic growth of labor force which grows alongside the broader population…the widely accepted definition of the labor pool, that used by the CBO and all other government forecasting agencies, assumes a 90,000 growth in the labor force every month as it has to keep in line with the growth of the US population! The implication is simple: using a real labor force participation rate long-term average of 65.8%, the real unemployment rate in April was 11.6%, based on the 5.4 million additional workers that should be counted as part of the U-3 which then means that the real number of unemployed is not 12.5 million but 17.9 million, which in turn implies a 11.6% unemployment rate in the US."
Real unemployment rate: "11.6%. Reason for difference: organic growth of labor force which grows alongside the broader population…the widely accepted definition of the labor pool, that used by the CBO and all other government forecasting agencies, assumes a 90,000 growth in the labor force every month as it has to keep in line with the growth of the US population! The implication is simple: using a real labor force participation rate long-term average of 65.8%, the real unemployment rate in April was 11.6%, based on the 5.4 million additional workers that should be counted as part of the U-3 which then means that the real number of unemployed is not 12.5 million but 17.9 million, which in turn implies a 11.6% unemployment rate in the US."
Hope. Change. Chronic unemployment.