You're right that the official unemployment rate reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (U3) excludes "discouraged workers" who have given up looking for

You're right that the official unemployment rate reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (U3) excludes "discouraged workers" who have given up looking for work. However, the BLS also publishes a rate that includes discouraged workers (U4), as well as a rate that includes "marginally attached workers" who would like to work, but for whatever reason have not looked for work recently (U5). All 3 of these have returned to normal levels [1]. There's also the U6 rate, which includes workers who are part-time, but would like to work full-time. [2] [1] http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10Uy http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10Uy [2] http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10UE http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10UE