Real unemployment is 14.3% NOT counting the 6 million Americans no longer listed on any statistical survey because they have given up and are no longer looking for work.

Former Bureau of Labor Statistics chief Keith Hall recently was asked about the unemployment rate, which shows 7.6% of all Americans without jobs. His answer was shocking.

<<<<  Real unemployment is 14.3%

“Right now (the standard unemployment rate) is misleadingly low,” Hall, now with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, told New York Post financial reporter John Crudele.

While it barely got mentioned by the mainstream media mob, Hall says the plunging employment-to-population ratio leads him to believe the real rate of unemployment is much higher than 7.6% — perhaps 10.6%.

How could that be? Ordinarily, during a recovery, the employment-to-population ratio actually increases as more people come off the sidelines and get jobs.

Not so this time. Hall notes that June’s 58.7% employment-to-population ratio is actually lower than when the recession began at the end of 2007.

“I think that’s a remarkable statistic,” he said. And that may be an understatement.

The BLS itself puts out several “alternative” measures of unemployment. One of them, the so-called U6 gauge, adds to ordinary unemployment those who are discouraged, part-time workers who want full-time jobs and those who are “marginally-attached” to the workforce.

As the chart above shows, the real rate of unemployment is about 14.3% — nearly two-thirds higher than when the recession began in December 2007**

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**  Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/071913-664481-unemployment-far-worse-than-official-data-official.htm#ixzz2ZixRK74i