Before formally define unemployment, let’s first define the “labor force”.  The labor force are all persons of working age who are not incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized, who are not in the military, and who are either working or are actively seeking a job.  Who’ve we left out?  Children.  Non-working retirees.  Stay-at-home parents.  Hobos.  Simply, anyone who isn’t working or looking for work. 

Of the United States population, the labor force participation rate runs approximately 50%.  So, the other half meets the other criteria – too young, military, institutionalized, retired, or just don’t want to work for whatever reason.  It’s important to keep this idea in mind.  When we get to “full employment” in the next section, we’ll need to draw on it. 

So, let’s define the unemployment rate: 

Unemployment Rate = Unemployed / Labor Force 

As of this writing, the unemployment rate is 14.7%.  That means of the current US civilian labor force of 156,481,000 persons, slightly over 23,000,000 are involuntarily unemployed.   

Another 8 million voluntarily left the labor force over the past few months.  The distinction between becoming unemployed versus leaving the labor force is worth noting.  To be deemed unemployed you have to be actively seeking a job or expecting to return to an existing job in the near future.  Many restaurant and other hospitality workers met this latter definition during Covid crisis.  You are deemed to have the labor force if you aren’t seeking work – even if the reason is that you think it would be hopeless.  This latter state is referred to as being a “discouraged worker” and some effort is made by the government to account for these persons elsewhere.