[Huck]

I'm with you. But all this is very easy to understand. People who don't like Obama want to use the worst number possible. I remember people here laughing about suggestions that people had "given up looking for work" under Bush. Back then, the shoe was on the other foot, people who didn't like Bush wanted to make it sound as bad as possible.

I don't like U6 because it seems very squishy to me. How do they measure someone who works part time but wants to work full time? Just gimme a straight up number. Actually, it seems like it'd be easier to measure employment than unemployment.

[LifeComesFirst]

Well, there’s no perfect measure, each tells us something different and each has its uses. No solutions, only tradeoffs.

[YankeeReb]

Actually, it seems like it'd be easier to measure employment than unemployment.

Seems like the IRS must have accurate figures on monthly wages or FICA taxes collected. That might be a better guage of unemployment. No matter what they use it's ugly out there. Construction and even renovations are flat where I live. Building permits down 50% from last year and commercial building permits down 25%. Thats a figure I saw in a letter tacked on a boarded up electrical supply house of all places. As another freeper wrote: After this administration gets done, I HOPE I'll have some spare CHANGE left in my pocket.