How bad is 10% unemployment?

Originally posted by kmax87
So from this perspective the observed increase in obesity amongst all segments in the population has no bearing on this outcome?

Technically, my post there was poorly worded. I was thinking of relative unemployment across age groups but wrote in a way that suggested absolute unemployment. Palyanka caught it and rightly corrected me.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Unemployment is like poverty. Unless you are truly at the bottom of the ladder it is all a matter of perspective and trends.
If you are getting poorer you feel poorer than you would if you were getting richer but at the same actual wealth.
If jobs are getting scarcer, you may refuse to take a lower paying job.
In reality there are always jobs availabl ...[text shortened]... ent is a measure of how much people think they are worth compared to what salaries are on offer.

To the extent that that is true the unemp rate would also estimate how much the labor skill is misallocated relative to potential.

Currently I am unemployed and have been for some time. While some on this thread have indicated that anyone can get a job - just any old job will not do with regards to cost of living. For instanse I live in New York which is a pretty famously expensive city. Before losing my job because of major cutbacks by the company I was working for I was making well over 40k yearly. Problem is that I was working in sales for a theatre and when the end of 2008 hit a lot of major broadway theatres closed or seriously reduced their workforce like mine did. Since then no new jobs have really come around in my field and if they do then I have to compete with other even more experienced people leaving me out in the cold. What I'm getting at is depending on the trade your in an ecomonic depression will effect your life differently. Also, I've read recently that the unemployment rate is around or above 10% but if you factor in people who do have jobs and are being paid much less than they were before last year's meltdown, and people who have jobs but work part-time - which is basically like not really have a job at all, then the figure is actually 20% or above. This is a much larger figure than the stated 10% and more acurately shows the level of economic crisis America is in.