I remain in the camp of people who are entirely unimpressed by the economic figures raved about by most pundits, economists and The White House. We all know that pay is not growing. But, there's another thing to be concerned about: the missing 3.1 million workers.
The rebound fans:
The American job market rebounded in April, the government said on Friday, helping to ease worries that the economy was on the brink of another extended slowdown after a bleak winter in which the overall economy stalled. But the growth in jobs failed to translate, once again, into any significant improvement in pay.
Uh, but wait a minute. What about a whole bunch of people who are off the radar screen? The Economic Policy Institute is
hunting for the "missing workers":
In today’s labor market, the unemployment rate drastically understates the weakness of job opportunities. This is due to the existence of a large pool of “missing workers”—potential workers who, because of weak job opportunities, are neither employed nor actively seeking a job. In other words, these are people who would be either working or looking for work if job opportunities were significantly stronger. Because jobless workers are only counted as unemployed if they are actively seeking work, these “missing workers” are not reflected in the unemployment rate.[emphasis added]
What's the number today?:
Total missing workers, April 2015: 3,140,000
Unemployment rate if missing workers were looking for work: 7.3%[emphasis added]
Which would mean the real unemployment rate--and I'm even leaving out the people who would like full-time work but can't find it (but are counted as "employed")--is double what the official number tells us.