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by daliwali 3361 days ago
Because the unemployment rate is a lie. It is denominated by the "labor force", which, if one excludes those who are no longer seeking work or chronically unemployed, it's basically being dishonest with statistics. One does not have to feign ignorance as to why there is a disconnect between the statistics and the reality.
1 comments

It's not a lie, it's a technical measure that people misinterpret.

If it was a lie you'd expect suppression of the further data.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

There is no need to censor the data, as long as one can present it in a way that is favorable to a particular viewpoint. The fallacious argument being made with the unemployment rate lends itself to misinterpretation.
Why would we expect such? The best lies are the ones that provide deniability, have enough truth to satisfy some, and yet mislead to the extent desired.

Creating a measurement that gets blasted on the front page of news that is largely misinterpreted, while keeping the actual figures out of public view enough so that only a small fraction of the population sees it seems to not be too different from a lie.