[marron]

The unemployment rate that the administration trumpets is a liar’s number.

Exactly. If you are out of work beyond a certain point, you are no longer counted as unemployed. That's how they get supposed improvements in the unemployment rate as fewer and fewer people have jobs.

Listening to the clowns in the press discussing fractional rises and falls in the unemployment rate makes my hair hurt. They are phony numbers and you can't find anyone to say so in plain English.

[1rudeboy]

If you are out of work beyond a certain point, you are no longer counted as unemployed.

If you have been out of work for 25 years, and are still looking, you are counted as unemployed.