Unemployed are defined as "[..] people of working age who are without work, are available for work, and have taken specific steps to find work." The question i

Unemployed are defined as "[..] people of working age who are without work, are available for work, and have taken specific steps to find work." The question is how many people exited the workforce, because both unemployment benefits and minimum wage offer payments that just barely allow them not to starve to death. Normally people would be incentivized to find work, because even minimum wage would offer a significant upgrade over unemployment benefits, but since minimum wage is so abysmally low they couldn't have set unemployment benefits much lower or people would have literally starved. The sane solution of increasing minimum wage to incentivize people to find jobs while obvious is not very popular with wealthy political donors.