Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, the other day refused to answer a direct question about the nation’s unemployment rate.
I don’t blame him. He’d have to do a whole press conference on that one issues.
Aside from the nonsense that I’ve documented about the way the data for the jobless rate are carelessly collected, there is really no good answer to that question.
The official unemployment rate is 4.7 percent. The Labor Department calls that the U-3.
But there are five other ways unemployment is officially calculated, including the U-6 rate.
The U-6 includes everyone who wants a full- time job but can only find a part-time gig, plus people who are actually unemployed.
Using this calculation, the government comes up with an unemployment rate of 9.2 percent. That would make the unemployment rate somewhere between 4.7 and 9.2 percent.
No wonder Spicer didn’t answer the question.