Official unemployment rate falls to 5.9%, unofficial rate is still above 11%

This Wonkblog post could have been titled "Americans think the Labor Department is tracking the wrong number." The blog discusses a poll asking respondents what they thought the unemployment rate was, the results of which show that 45% of those polled thought the unemployment rate was higher than the official rate, which was reported to decline to 5.9% in September. While the post's author speculates that the discrepancy might be due to personal experiences or that they missed the news it may be that the public is a better guide to some things than official statistics, at least the 'headline' unemployment rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does keep track of better measures, of course. In its release, you can find out that, although the number of unemployed persons (those looking not employed, but who looked for work in the last four weeks) fell to 9.3 million, the number of people working less than they want to for economic reasons (involuntary part-time workers) was 7.1 million and those who were marginally attached (who want to and are able to work, had looked for work in the last 12 months but not in the prior four weeks) numbered 2.2 million. The number of people in the latter two categories had not fallen over the last year. The math wizzes among you may have noticed that the involuntary part-time and marginally attached add up to 9.3 million, coincidentally the same as the number of officially unemployed. If you add those people to the unemployed (and the labor force), the unemployment rate you get (which the BLS calls U-6) is 11.1%. So maybe those people who think the unemployment rate is twice as high as the official rate know something about the economy that Washington Post bloggers don't.