Seems to good to be true, and in the FAQ starting page 9 there is some interesting info: In May 2020, 5.4 million people were included in the “other reasons” c

Seems to good to be true, and in the FAQ starting page 9 there is some interesting info: In May 2020, 5.4 million people were included in the “other reasons” category—about two-thirds of the total 8.4 million employed people not at work during the survey reference week (not seasonally adjusted). This is lower than the 8.1 million people not at work for “other reasons” in April, but was substantially higher than the average of 549,000 for May in recent years. As in April, BLS analysis of the underlying data suggests that this group included workers affected by the pandemic response who should have been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff. Such a misclassification is an example of nonsampling error and can occur when respondents misunderstand questions or interviewers record answers incorrectly. BLS and the Census Bureau are investigating why this misclassification error continues to occur and are making changes for the June collection. And 13. Household survey: What would the unemployment rate be if these misclassified workers were included among the unemployed? If the workers who were recorded as employed but not at work for the entire survey reference week had been classified as “unemployed on temporary layoff,” the overall unemployment rate would have been higher than reported. This kind of exercise requires some assumptions. For example, first one needs to determine how many workers might be misclassified. There were 5.4 million workers with a job but not at work who were included in the “other reasons” category in May 2020, about 4.9 million higher than the average for May 2016–2019. (While this category contains misclassified workers, not every person in this category was necessarily misclassified. The average for recent May estimates was 549,000 employed people with a job not at work for “other reasons.”) One assumption might be that these additional 4.9 million workers who were included in the “other reasons” category should have been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff. If these workers were instead considered unemployed on temporary layoff, the number of unemployed people in May (on a not seasonally adjusted basis) would increase by 4.9 million from 20.5 million to 25.4 million. The number of people in the labor force would remain at 158.0 million in May (not seasonally adjusted) as people move from employed to unemployed but stay in the labor force. The resulting unemployment rate for May would be 16.1 percent (not seasonally adjusted), compared with the official estimate of 13.0 percent (not seasonally adjusted). Estimates of people with a job but not at work are not available on a seasonally adjusted basis, so seasonally adjusted data, such as the unemployment rate mentioned in The Employment Situation news release, are not used in this exercise. (Repeating this exercise, but combining the not seasonally adjusted data on additional people with a job but not at work in the “other reasons” category with the seasonally adjusted estimates reported in The Employment Situation news release yields a similar 3.1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate for May—or 16.4 percent, compared with the official seasonally adjusted rate of 13.3 percent.) https://www.bls.gov/cps/employment-situation-covid19-faq-may-2020.pdf https://www.bls.gov/cps/employment-situation-covid19-faq-may...