Who knew they had such strange dichotomies in their stats. Employed Americans...and what does that mean? What constitutes an employed American? My kid has a roommate who's working 20 hours per week, and desperately needs full time, but there are no full time positions at his work place at present. My point, does the figure of employed Americans include "under employed?"
And isn't this whole job stat a little suspicious coming out on the same day as the devastating news that the job losses were overwhelmingly underestimated for the past year and a half?
To count the underemployed you need to use the U-6 number, which is the closest to how unemployment was counted in the 1980’s.
U- = 16.5% seasonally adjusted
18.0% not seasonally adjusted