[enraged_camel]

>>The standard rate (U3) doesn't take underemployed or those who give up looking for work into account, but the U6 rate does. The U6 rate in January of 2009 was 14.2% and it is now down to 11.2% from its peak at 17.1% at the end of 2009/early 2010. Is the economy still struggling? Sure. Is unemployment headed in the right direction? Absolutely.

But the decrease in unemployment and underemployment still don't paint the most accurate picture, because a lot of people who became employed did so at lower pay. I mean you may be employed full-time but if you're making 25% less than what you did before the crash, it's difficult to make the case that things are improving.

[med00d]

Can you share any information about people taking the same job for less pay? I haven't seen evidence of this, but I don't doubt that it's happening in some places. I'll admit that I live in sort of a bubble because my salary has doubled since 2008 and the salaries of many of my friends and family have grown quite a bit as well. Granted, most of the people I know work in some sort of tech-related field.

[enraged_camel]

I don't have any citations handy, but there are a lot of stories, both reported in the press and relayed anecdotally, of people who got laid off during the crash and then got re-hired at lower pay once the dust settled.

On top of that, a lot of people were unemployed for a long time and then had to jump on the first offer they got, which often paid less.

[djokkataja]

This doesn't indicate that people are taking the exact same job for less pay, but it's still relevant to the general thrust of your question, I think:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=Zqn