While we may measure the economy in several different ways, these measurements do not always chime in with the actually reality of it all. The unemployment rate is one of these particular measurements. Many people believe that the unemployment rate is a representation of those in the United States who are simply out of work and unemployed. However, that is just the simplicity of it all. The way that unemployment is measured is by the number of jobless individual who have the ability to work and have been looking for work within the past month. This is how the unemployment percentage for the United States as a whole is actually at 8.1 percent.

However, the accuracy of this is overlooked because there are plenty of people who are unemployed that simply have not applied for a new job or even bothered looking. Some people are enjoying the few weeks of being unemployed, much like a mini vacation. In the meantime, there are a large amount of workers who have simply become discouraged and have given up looking for work, unable to find work after quite some time. These people once looked for work but eventually got tired of not being able to find anything so eventually, they gave up looking altogether. A lot of these people have, unfortunately, run out of unemployment benefits as well and some of these people never even qualified for the benefit to begin with. It is believed that the actual unemployment and underemployment percentage is more so around the 14.5 percent range.

While it is an issue that there is a large gap between the 8.1 percent displayed and the actual 14.5 percent that includes the underemployed, it is even more an issue when the unemployment rate actually drops simply because people are no longer receiving unemployment and not because they were actually able to find employment. And, based on certain communities, the unemployment rate is generally higher than some other communities. For example, the African American community has a typically higher unemployment and underemployment rate than some of the other communities, with many people in this community becoming discouraged after being unable to find work for such a long time. Many of these individuals have also lost their unemployment benefits after they ended up running out.

There is definitely still an employment crisis going on in the United States and that 8.1 percent may seem like good news but for the most part, it actually is not. President Barack Obama may be concerned about the upcoming elections at a time like this because jobs are still weak and his opponent, Mitt Romney, is pointing this out at every single chance he can possibly get.