Unemployment

Here are two views of the employment situation in the U.S. Number one is from the government which is reporting that for the first time in quite some time, over 200,000 new non-farm jobs were created in one month, and coincidentally, the official unemployment rate is now down to 7%.

Number two is the Gallup poll, done daily:

	% Payroll to population	% Underemployed	% Unemployed
12/4/2013	43.5%	17.4%	8.1%
12/3/2013	43.5%	17.3%	8.3%
12/2/2013	43.6%	17.3%	8.3%
12/1/2013	43.8%	17.2%	8.3%
11/30/2013	43.7%	17.2%	8.2%
11/29/2013	43.6%	17.2%	8.2%
11/27/2013	43.6%	17.3%	8.2%
11/26/2013	43.5%	17.2%	8.1%
11/25/2013	43.7%	17.2%	8.1%
11/24/2013	43.6%	17.3%	8.1%

Gallup tracks daily the percentage of U.S. adults, aged 18 and older, who are underemployed, unemployed, and employed full-time for an employer, without seasonal adjustment. "Underemployed" respondents are employed part time, but want to work full time, or they are unemployed. "Unemployed" respondents are those within the underemployed group who are not employed, even for one hour a week, but are available and looking for work.

 The Gallup link is updated daily so if you click it tomorrow, it will include tomorrows results. Note that Gallup does not include those unemployed who have given up looking for work but would like to work. That would drive the unemployment numbers even higher.

Found this chart here. That 3% drop represents 9.45 million people who have given up looking for work. Add them to the governments 7% number which gives 14M unemployed, and you get 11.1% unemployment. Tack that on to Gallups number and the number goes to 12.6%.