How nation's true jobless rate is closer to 22%

You keep reading that the unemployment rate stayed at 10 percent. But the press has been playing up the 17.3 percent rate that includes those "underemployed," meaning they can't find a full-time job but want one.

I've been mentioning that under-employed figure -- called U-6 by the Labor Department -- for years and I'm glad everyone else has finally caught up.

But that larger figure doesn't include a huge number of unemployed folks who have given up looking for work because they feel the search is hopeless. Last Friday's report said 661,000 such people left the labor force in December.

If you count these hopelessly unemployed, the real jobless rate is probably close to 22 percent. If these all weren't such important issues, this would all be a big joke.
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