I would contend that most conservative ideology leans towards attempting to achieve equality of opportunity, which is a very functional but (sometimes) not very compassionate approach; and that most progressive ideology leans towards attempting to achieve equality of outcomes, which is a very compassionate but not very functional approach. Neither leads to optimal outcomes ...

I would suggest that optimal results are achieved when you have equality of opportunity and a system which encourages the maximum capitalization of that opportunity; essentially trying to achieve the Nash Equilibrium within the economy. With education as the example, this would be a world where every child has the opportunity to go to school and every child takes advantage of this opportunity and receives a high quality education. This is an economy where everyone can obtain adequate food, clothing and shelter for a reasonable portion of their income; and the difference between the wealthiest individuals in the economy and the minimum wage workers is their capacity to afford luxuries.

Now, the government acting as a referee can aid in the building of such an economy, but the more active their participation in the economy to create better outcomes will result in this becoming a more elusive outcome. Essentially, any action by the government within the economy will result in an equal or greater counter-reaction in the economy. An example of this is the housing market where government action to increase home affordability and home ownership created a housing bubble which made homes far less affordable; and the options that many low income people used to have (save up a 10% to 20% down payment) to afford a home were taken away because of the price appreciation (saving up 20% for a $100,000 home is possible for low income individuals, saving up 20% when the same home is selling for $500,000 isn’t).

To be fair... they do report the ACTUAL unemployment numbers too... but nobody bothers to report it.  Because the other number is more positive, i guess.

Doesn't matter.  They don't use that information for anything.   Unemployment numbers are calculatd by the US Census Buerau.

The good old hard work ethic is not always going to reward itself later on in life. Employers/bosses under pay workers so they can maximise their profit margins and give themselves pay rises and bonuses every year regardless if the company makes a profit or loss for the year. Lower paid workers always get sacked when the company makes a loss. Self-interest: corruption and greed is what drives the employers/bosses to rip of their employees.

Economic downturns such as a worldwide recession will result in fewer job opportunities and less investment. During an economic downturn the employers/bosses employ fewer workers or freeze recruitment, reduce workers hours so the employers can get their annual pay rises. Employees are forced to work unpaid over time to break their own backs and only to increase the employers/bosses profits.

In a healthy market where companies can turn a healthy profit while paying their employees a good wage (with good benefits) because their employees bring education, skills and experience that enable the company to produce goods and services at a lower cost at a higher quality than other regions you don’t see these problems.

The question you should be asking is "How do we improve the education, skills and experience of the American work force?" rather than "How do we take more money from companies?" ... The different approach that the answer to these questions will suggest will provide drastically different results. Asking (essentially) how to improve the American work-force will result in a stronger, healthier economy which provides better wages and benefits for everyone; while asking how to take more money from companies will result in an exodus of companies from the United States, and everyone will become poorer with worse benefits.

Wages are just another expense for a business.  Bringing in more profits guarantees NOTHING in regards to employees getting more.  Companies also don't just hire, because they have more money.  The only thing, short of laws that are passed, or unions doing collective bargaining, which will cause employers to pay more, or hire more, is if there is competition for labor.  Without such competition, there isn't improved benefits.  And corporations will look everywhere for the cheapest labor everywhere.

Also, people need to knock off this "but but but, you can't do that... it will cost jobs".  Companies are looking for any excuse to cut headcount.  Even when times are good, and companies report record profits, they will still lay people off. 

And no, the question to ask isn't: "How do we improve the education, skills and experience of the American work force?"  Because these questions don't matter to corporations.  They will hire as cheap as possible.  The American workforce, from a hard working and productivity standpoint, is near the top of the world.  This doesn't matter, because corporations find it much cheaper to hire in India and China.  To compete with them, you drive the standard of living of Americans to the level of India and China.  And companies will find it cheaper to hire on pennies on the dollar and train workers there, particularly using American manpower they will let go, than to use American labor. 

I don’t think you understood what I was saying. In my industry (software development) there was a trend by many companies to offshore work to cheaper firms in India, but because of the costs and problems associated with that many companies are repatriating those jobs; and my current job is an example of that. When I was hired the intention of my company was to replace the 15 software developers who were maintaining a product in India with 3 to 5 software developers in Canada, and after I was able to manage the workload of this product by myself with (roughly) 50% of my workload while improving relations with our clients it became clear how poor of a business decision offshoring was.

... Or to put it another way, maintaining the lowest cost to do business is typically unrelated to hiring the lowest paid workers

Now, on the other hand, if you have a Union that has pushed the hourly wages of individuals who can't read, write or do basic arithmetic to $76/hour and you can get 85% the productivity from an employee in china earning $2/hour it will be difficult to keep that job in North America

Just to make my point clearer:

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

With the fact that the Jobs the United States seems to be losing are jobs for unskilled labour, don't you think it would be worthwhile to improve the number of people in the skilled labour force?

Employers/companies will always look for the cheapest possible labour. The recession was a way of dropping the living standards in the western world towards India and China standards of living. Significantly lower wages would have to be accepted. Property values in overseas markets have been almost halved in value. Unemployment figures have reached double figures in most western world countries since the GFC.

I am going to file "We need to get more people more college degrees and advanced ones" under the category of B.S.  I have a BS degree in Management, and a Masters in Information Systems.  I hadn't worked a regular job in the field since 2007.  Most recently, I had a janitorial position I was doing briefly, until issues with my back resulted in me not being able to do it.  I was with IBM until 2004.  At that point I was let go with a bunch of other people, in software development.  Between 2004 and 2007 I had two helpdesk jobs, the first one paying $12.50/hr. 

The reality of the job market today is that there are too many people with college degrees who aren't doing work in what they are trained for.  There is a glut of people with such degrees.  And the payoff of debt vs payout for degree isn't worth it.  What is needed is education past high school being restructured to that which is more viable, say trade school or something else... and debt load kept WAY down. 

Here are some videos to back up what I am talking about: