The points where U6 can be misleading are very substantial. It includes retirees, students, the disabled and several other categories of people not seeking work. There is a reason why U3 is the official government figure and U6 is not.
Also, it has been my observation that these discussion center chiefly around changes in the unemployment rate, rather than the absolute amount: one group claims the rate went down while another says "but wait!!!!! Look at U6!" This ignores the fact that the two are highly correlated - when one declines, the other strongly tends to do so as well.
http://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate
The only shenanigans here are different groups championing whichever metric they believe best suits their a priori political stance and conclusions.
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David Corliss
IT Analytic Services / Predictive Analytics
Ford Motor Company
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-09-2015 12:18
From: Walter Dyar
Subject: BLS Unemployment Figures
The news usually only reports the U3 unemployment number. A better understanding requires a comparison of, at least, the U3 and U6 (Total Unemployment, Under Employed, etc) numbers. The link below has the August 2015 numbers.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
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Walter Dyar
Retired
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