Washington Post Highlights the 'Invisible Unemployed'

Washington Post, “Hidden workforce challenges domestic economic recovery,” March 15, 2011:

“Adding These Workers to February’s Jobless Rate Pushes It Up to 10.5 Percent”

“Overshadowing the nation’s economic recovery is not only the number of Americans who have lost their jobs, but also those who have stopped looking for new ones. These workers are not counted in the Labor Department’s monthly unemployment rate, yet they say they are willing to work. Since the recession began, their numbers have grown by 30 percent, to more than 6.4 million, amounting to a hidden labor force that could stymie the turnaround. Adding these workers to February’s jobless rate pushes it up to 10.5 percent, well above the more commonly cited 8.9 percent rate.”

The following is a chart that has been regularly updated by Ways and Means Republicans, displaying the unemployment rate including unemployed people the Washington Post calls the “hidden labor force.” This same group was dubbed the “invisible unemployed” by Austan Goolsbee, the Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, in an article he wrote in 2003 assailing the prior Administration. According to Goolsbee, the “invisible unemployment rate” back then “probably pushed 8 percent” – well below the current level.

Source: January 2009 Romer/Bernstein Report (“Administration Prediction With Stimulus Plan”), actual U.S. Department of Labor data and Ways and Means Republican staff calculations of invisible unemployed.

The “invisible unemployed” are defined as unemployed persons not included in official unemployment rate calculations because they are not currently in the labor force, compared with the month Democrats’ stimulus passed (February 2009). This includes people who quit looking for jobs since stimulus passed and dropped out of the labor force, plus other working-age adults who never entered the labor force, but presumably would have if the labor force participation rate was the same as when stimulus passed.