Unemployment Explained | U3 vs U6 Unemployment Rates

Unemployment statistics are complicated and this video will help explain them! “What is unemployment?” seems like a pretty straight forward question. You either have a job or you don’t. Right? Well it turns out that in economics there are MANY definitions of unemployment and the one most commonly reported, U3 unemployment, the one shown in this graph and blasted all over the news media, is just one, and perhaps not even THE most appropriate way that unemployment can be reported. And beyond that, how is the government even able to give us monthly reportings on unemployment rates? There are something like 260 million people that could potentially work in the US. How can the government, on a monthly basis, figure out what fraction are employed?

Welcome to Data Demystified. I’m Jeff Galak and in this episode we’re going to answer three big questions about unemployment. First, we’ll answer how unemployment is measured each month, second we’ll go into detail on what is most typically meant by unemployment, and finally, we’ll discuss a much more useful measure of unemployment that is not often discussed, but is likely a much better reflection of how the economy is doing.

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[erobos]

Very good, simplified explanation! I was hoping that you would've also explored long and short discouraged workers, who to my understanding are also part of U-6 demographic. Thanx for this!

[yamaci]

@Data Demystified great video! but on trading view i can only find U3. where ca n i find the U6 data?

[pbennett]

thanks for sharing, but the question I have is: when presidents or the labor bureau report on unemployment, are they all using the same measure - U3 or U6? Or are there cases when some use U3 and others U6?

[حامدعبدالعباس-دث]

thanx alot but how we can know that >>> i mean the true rate unemployment (U-6) ?