Gallup Finds underemployment at 18.4%

This is called the U6 number as reported by the BLS, although it's several percent lower then Gallup. The BLS number that is reported is the U3 number although there are 6 categories from U-1 to U-6. The way unemployment was measured during the Great Depression was similar to the U6 number which sees little in the way of headlines, the lower u# number is what is the headline number, but if you work 1 hour a week, you are counted in the U3 number making it seem like the unemployment situation is better then most realize as the headline number is usually taken to mean those who are jobless and few people make the distinction between employed and underemployed. I prefer the U6 number myself, the reason being is someone who works 10 hours a week, but wants to work full time, for all intents and purposes is not self supporting and is not contributing to the economy. There re tons of people who fall in to this category and at 18.4%, it's not far off the Great Depression peak which was 25%, but I'm sure during much of the Great Depression, the number was in the area of 18-19%.

My wife has to work two jobs and gets up at 4 a.m. to get ready for work and comes home sometimes at 9 p.m. because she works two jobs, not because she wants 60+ hours a week, but because few employers want to pay 40 hour a week and almost none want to pay time and a half for overtime. One employer won't pay for more then 28 hours because if they do, then they have to pay for benefits like health insurance, so they have a cadre of part time workers. When we had our family cafe, we had a lot of workers who only got 212-20  hours a week, some because of school, but others because they would simply take anything they could get. My neighbor actually just moved to northern Florida yesterday because her fiance has been unable to find programming work for as long as I've lived here which is about a year.

While the unemployment rate is fairly high (higher then the national average) in south Florida, my wife is able to find a job within a few days, but the wages certainly aren't what they used to be. n any case, I've never trusted the BLS data, when is the last time they didn't revise the prior week and when is the last time they revised it for the better?