Critically omitted and overlooked in all those stats

The unemployment figures in the US don't look good.

Stats are one thing. They not only mask what is really going on the world outside the statisticians numbers, but all too often they are incomplete.

The NY Times highlights in a piece "Out of Work, Too Down to Search On, and Uncounted" those "missing" in the stats on unemployment:

"They were left out of the latest unemployment rate, as they are every month: millions of hidden casualties of the Great Recession who are not counted in the rate because they have stopped looking for work.

But that does not mean these discouraged Americans do not want to be employed. As interviews with several of them demonstrate, many desperately long for a job, but their inability to find one has made them perhaps the ultimate embodiment of pessimism as this recession wears on.

Some have halted their job searches out of sheer frustration. Others have decided it makes more sense to become stay-at-home fathers or mothers, or to go back to school, until the job market improves. Still others have chosen to retire for now and have begun collecting Social Security or disability benefits, for which claims have surged."

Continue reading here - about four examples of what then piece is "talking about".

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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