Unemployment measures the number of people who search for work and do not have it. People who accept lower paying. less skilled jobs are employed. People who gave up (retire early, move in with relatives, live on odd jobs and savings, etc ...) are not counted.
You can have prosperous, stable, ascending society with relatively high unemployment and you can have poor, troubled one with full employment.
There seems to be a very large number of "families" receiving food stamps, WIC, CHIP, housing assistance, Medicaid even though they are working. We should look at the total numbers receiving government handouts. Certainly in a good economy there should be almost no one on any welfare program.