American Unemployment: the Scope of the Problem

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"The idea is they're not doing anything that could actually lead to them getting a job," said Tom Nardone, an assistant commissioner for current employment analysis with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "The underlying concept is that it has to be activity based."

That's not to say that everyone designated as not in the labor force doesn't want to work. In many cases, it would be more accurate to say that they've given up in the face of grinding long-term unemployment. That's reflected in the subset of people who are "marginally attached to the labor force"-- they want a job, are available to work and haven't been employed in the last 12 months. Within that category is what the Bureau of Labor Statistics labels "discouraged workers" who believe that they lack the proper qualifications or face some sort of discrimination (a provision in President Barack Obama's jobs bill that would prohibit employers from discriminating against people based on employment status speaks to the latter).

A separate measure commonly referred to as U-6 encompasses the nuances absent from the 9.1 percent figure - in addition to the unemployed, it considers people marginally attached to the labor force and people who want full time work but are forced to accept part-time jobs. In September, the U-6 rate stood at 16.5 percent, more than seven points higher than the conventional unemployment rate.

"The percentage of long-term unemployed is not a number you can fit into a traditional unemployment statistic," said Andrew Reamer, a research professor at George Washington University and chairman of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Data Users Advisory Group. "You have to look at several numbers to get a full picture of the current state of the labor market and the current situation of the labor force."

In September, 6.24 million of the people officially considered unemployed had been without work for six months or more. Obama's attempt to shield the long-term unemployed from discrimination speaks to the fact that these workers face a self-perpetuating problem - the longer they are out of work, the more their skills erode and the greater challenge they face in winning over wary employers.

Add to that the number of people not even measured by the unemployment rate, and a picture emerges of an economy unlikely to fully recover any time soon. Even if the economy were to strengthen and start adding a substantial number of jobs, the unemployment rate could rise as workers considered out of the labor force, encouraged by a sunnier outlook, flow back into the labor market.

"How many people are long-term unemployed is a big problem and unlikely to change," said Tom Larson, a professor of economics and statistics at California State University, Los Angeles. "With the severity and length of the recession, people with long term unemployment are going to have quite a bit of trouble re-entering."

Unemployment figures get even trickier when broken down by industry. Magnifying the unemployment picture has advantages, but some workers dissolve into the background.

The Bureau of Labor Statistic's dissection of unemployment by sector is particularly useful for showing the ebb and flow of the American economy, and despite the 9.1 percent figure, some industries, like mining, are growing robustly. As a whole, around 5,500 mining jobs were added in the past year.