>We've gone from ~4% unemployment to 10-15%. Which sounds bad. But if you flip it around, we've gone from 96% employment to 85-90%. The vast majority of people

>We've gone from ~4% unemployment to 10-15%. Which sounds bad. But if you flip it around, we've gone from 96% employment to 85-90%. The vast majority of people are still employed and the economy is mostly still humming along. This is not how it works. The US measures unemployment using levels, the 10-15% are U-3, which only counts people without jobs who are in the labor force. To remain in the labor force, they must have looked for a job in the last four weeks. The U-6, or real unemployment rate, includes the underemployed, the marginally attached, and discouraged workers and is at 25%. There are plenty of deeper explanations online but basically politicians love to talk about U-3 but the true unemployment is U-6.