This keeps popping up because many average people have their own understanding of unemployment and it's not the official one. I'm going to go out on a pedantic

This keeps popping up because many average people have their own understanding of unemployment and it's not the official one. I'm going to go out on a pedantic limb and say that defining U3 as the "official rate" of unemployment is misleading. There is no such thing as a singular unemployment rate, and we could be more transparent when we talk about it. Being clear that we are referring to the U3 indicator of unemployment could help raise the question of nuance for average people. Faulting people for their illiteracy doesn't help move us forward. If we find a way to make them literate, this goes away.