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Even as official federal, state and local unemployment figures continue to climb, they don't tell the whole story.

 

Official government jobless numbers only count those who are recently unemployed and who are actively looking for work. This means that those who only work a few hours a week, or who have given up looking for work, are not counted.

 

Since 1994, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been compiling statistics on the various ways in which workers have insufficient or no work, but are not unemployed under the standard definition.

 

The BLS calls roughly 60,000 households each month and asks: Have you worked at all this past month? Have you looked for a job?

 

If the first answer is no and the second answer yes, you count as unemployed. Roughly 10 million people in October were in that category — 6.5 percent of the work force.

 

But if you worked part time, even if you make insufficient money to live on, you don’t count as jobless. If you were too discouraged to look for work, you don’t count as jobless. If you worked for yourself, you don't count as jobless..

 

“Since May, there are 1.6 million more people out of work and 1.5 million more people working part-time involuntarily,” said Andrew Stettner of the National Employment Law Project. “The involuntary part-time number is really big and it’s growing quickly.”

 

The number of involuntary part-timers in October rose to 6.7 million. That translates to a true national  unemployment and underemployment rate of 11.8 percent.

 

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