Unofficial US unemployment rate may be over 25%, new data reveals

Workers who make less than living wage and those who have given up looking for work not included in data

New labour data suggests the "real" unemployment rate in the US may actually be 26.1 per cent.  

Axios first reported on the staggering numbers.  

The data defines anyone who is looking for full-time work that pays a living wage, but who cannot find it, as unemployed.

Current unemployment numbers tend to disregard individuals who make far less than a living wage and those who have stopped looking for work.  

If the definition is expanded further to include anyone over the age of 16 who is not earning a living wage, the number inflates to 54.6 per cent. For black Americans, that number is even larger, 59.2 per cent.  

Since the recession, only 46.1 per cent of white Americans over the age of 16 have a full-time job that pays more than $20,000 annually. Only 40.8 per cent of black Americans under that criteria have a full-time job making more than $20,000 annually.  

The official unemployment rate in September was 8 per cent, down from 14.7 per cent at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in the US.  

That number does not account for the nearly 700,000 people who have stopped looking for work after losing their jobs during the pandemic, nor does it account for the decrease of the labour force to 160.1m people in September. In August, the labour force was 164.5m people; that missing 4.4 million is not counted in the unemployment numbers.  

According to data from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, there were 24.2 million people who reported that they were unable to find work as a result of their employer closing or due to business losses due to the pandemic. Those people worked fewer hours or did not work at all at some point in the last month of the pandemic.  

Only 11.6 per cent of those reporting they had lost business or work opportunities reported having received any sort of pay from their employer to compensate for the lack of work.  

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits should reflect the unemployment rate. However, the current unemployment numbers suggest there are 13.6m people unemployed, even though 26m people are still receiving unemployment benefits.  

That disparity suggests the real unemployment rate is much higher than the official numbers.