The specific metric you and the parent are looking for is "Labor Participation Rate".[0] This is a personal favorite metric of mine, because it makes readily a

The specific metric you and the parent are looking for is "Labor Participation Rate".[0] This is a personal favorite metric of mine, because it makes readily apparent some of the distortions the parent brought up. I imagine they're likely being downvoted for some combination of more vociferous language, less citations, different perspectives on the merit of the math/historical comparison the poster is referring to, as well as good old "you're wrong" downvotes, but I certainly found myself agreeing with the thrust of the point. (that unemployment and in related fashion CPI are regularly distorted for one agenda or another; for a recent example of this look at the application of C-CPI in the latest tax code to help address budget shortfalls in a way one might fairly call "slight of hand."[1]) [0]https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-20/the-big-permanent-tax-increase-inside-the-tax-cut-act https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-20/the-big-p...