>I thought the "jobless rate" included discouraged workers and
>involuntary part-timers? Does this mean that those using that term
>chose one that the BLS uses as a synonym for the unemployment rate and
>the BLS uses a term as a synonym that they are aware us being used as an
>alternative indicator. I have seen what I defined as the jobless rate
>also called the "marginalization rate" I believe (by Boston, R.
>Williams).
"Jobless rate" is just a journalistic synonym for the unemployment rate. The BLS publishes six "alternative measures of labor underutilization"
<http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm>. The broadest, the U-6, includes "total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers," was 8.1%, compared with the official rate of 4.9%, in August.
BLS definitions: "Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule."
Doug