[political1]

Children don't work, retired people don't work. sick people don't work. How do they count the employment rate. If 30% of the people work for the local/state/federal government. Do we take the unemployment rate out of the 70% remaining. Best I can figure is 63% of the WORKING POPULATION is paying for everybody else. Notice I said working population. If someone calculated the non-working population against the working population. Then take the public sector workers against the private sector workers, One would start to see the actual revenue enhancers are a very small section of the population.

[ExtremeUnction]

Real unemployment is much higher. What about all the folks who fell off the rolls after their unemployment insurance expired? What about all the folks who lost their jobs at age 62 and were forced to take early S/S? It's way worse than 12%.

Hell is other people." ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

[OldGoatCPO]

I read recently that we have reached the threshold where every worker is now paying for two non-workers. This is brought on by the retirement of baby-boomers. Before I get jumped. Baby boomers paid into the systems with government assurance and are not to blame for the poor management of the country. Those baby boomers who worked and paid taxes, paid into SS and Medicaid are not freeloaders.
That said, with welfare recipients not being counted as unemployed, I am guessing your estimate of 63% is high.