I’m not sure if you’re be deliberately dense or not
I said 25m, as that was the number being batted around during the 2012 debates between MRomney and 0failure
as for including kids and old folks... they include them in the total number of people, not the number of unemployed. they do that to decrease the resultant percentage... which makes it invalid.
do the math yourself, it’s really not that difficult. try to find the numbers that allow 25m unemployed to become 8% unemployment.
you’ll find that 25m would need to be divided by 300m to become 8% (I believe 8.1% was the actual fedgov approved number of the day back then)
You said:
as for including kids and old folks... they include them in the total number of people, not the number of unemployed. they do that to decrease the resultant percentage... which makes it invalid.
Yes, kids and old folks are included in the total population, and not in the workforce numbers. That is as it should be.
The unemployment percentage as reported by the BLS is only based on the total number of people in the workforce who they consider to be unemployed. And yes, there are definite problems with the way they define "unemployed".
What IS invalid is multiplying the unemployment rate percentage by the total population, to get your 25 million number. It is based on a misunderstanding and misuse of the statistics, and it gives a misleading answer. Your arithmetic is correct, but the logic behind it is faulty.
What this error inherent in this calculation actually does is OVERSTATE the number of unemployed people, while at the same time, the way they calculate the percentage UNDERSTATES the number of unemployed.
Which error dominates? That I can't say off hand.
But your original assertion that we need a better set of definitions for these statistics is right on the money. I agree totally.