Originally Posted by kane

When people say the unemployment rate is fake they are using the wrong word. What they mean is that it is not exactly accurate. If a person gives up on looking for a job and drops out of the workforce they are no longer counted as being unemployed. In recent years we have seen this number jump. In Jan of 2000 the labor participation rate was around 67% in Jan of 2017 it was around 63%. That is a pretty significant number of people who are no longer working. The unemployment rate also doesn't factor in underemployment. These are people who either working part-time but are actively seeking a full-time job or they are actively seeking a job that pays more.

Gallup factors these things into its unemployment number and with those factored in they calculate the real unemployment rate to be 8.4%.

All of this also doesn't take into consideration what type of jobs are being created. These days most of the jobs being created are lower paying service and retail jobs and not the higher paying manufacturing jobs of the past.

So, the number isn't fake, but it also isn't a 100% accurate reflection of what the unemployment situation really is.