>The official unemployment rate counts only people actively looking for work – it does not capture those who would like a job but have stopped searching. The official unemployment rate is so narrow that it hides long-term changes in the economy. In fact, things are far worse than the official figures suggest.

Back in the 1970's for statistical reasons they had to drop the number of unemployed who were considered to have "stopped searching" since it was so true.

Naturally the only reason they had stopped searching was because there was nothing left to find no matter how extensive the quest.

And these are generally the ones who had searched the longest and could use a new job the most.

It was very important to keep them off the statistics once the only path to recovery was deemed to be from consumers, the overall sentiment needed to be kept positive or consumers were not going to part with their money again.

Most people could not afford anything, the worst presidential malfeasance in history up until that point was bad enough of a shock to begin with, and it had snowballed to where key deceptions had to be implemented or everybody was going to be rolled over.