The official numbers say that unemployment is at 10.2%.

The real unemployment rate is really 17.5%.

Those are very different numbers but unemployment has always been measured in a way that makes it look lower than it actually is.

What does 17% mean?  It means that one out of every six workers in the United States is unemployed.  It is such a high number that it is only the second time it has crept past 18% — the other time was in December, 1982 when it was 17.1%.  In 1982, the “reported” unemployment rate was 10.8% and we seem to be rushing towards (or past) that number again.

How bad is it?  16 million people are now unemployed and more than seven million jobs have been lost since late 2007.

How close are we to the Great Depression in regards to unemployment?  Even though no official records are available, the NY Times sat down and figured out that the real unemployment during the Great Depression was 30%.  That means that the current unemployment rate is roughly 2/3 as bad as during the Great Depression.

They say that the “Great Recession” is over and that unemployment always lags.  I sure hope so — my mother was forced onto social security and into early retirement because she couldn’t find an entry back into the workforce and my stepfather was just forced into early retirement by his employer, the government.