[conistonwater]

I think you are wrong to bring politics into this, especially the left-right divide. The question of whether the unemployment rate is meaningful and useful is a question of economics, and should be settled as such. In fact, it is being used exactly as it is meant to, consistent with its historical use. Like I said in the other comment, since the other measures of underemployment show similar results, that makes it that much more likely that the unemployment rate is reliable.

Also, please don't throw trolling accusations like that.

[ta_donk_gt]

You started this thread with "And yet there are enough politicians who reject even those statistics, and that seems like a totally different category of stupidity".

Now you say "I think you are wrong to bring politics into this".

This entire subthread was about politicians' use of this statistic. I've mentioned several times now that the disagreement over the statistic is a disagreement over its use by politicians, not over the accuracy of recording the statistic, and you continue to sidestep this. If that's not trolling, I don't know what is.