They are still unemployed :P

If you lost your job and had no family and you were forced to live on the street but were looking for a job then you shouldn't count? :P

And are homeless people even counted in a census?  Like the population of Canada is 34 million, does that count the homeless?  If not then it doesn't matter if you count them as an unemployment stat.  Stay at home parents though are iffy, I can see your reasons why you shouldn't count them, but my main reason is to show the TRUE unemployment rate.  Just because you don't WANT to work doesn't mean you are employed...  

I did forget a few people though

% of people incarcerated
% of people in Post-Secondary

A person who is not willing to look for a job should not count. Homeless who aren't trying to do better, housewives/husbands, full time students not wanting to work, etc should all be ignored.

Your logic is like saying I should be in the running for the lottery jackpot even though I haven't bought a ticket.

If you don't include them then they are counted as EMPLOYED

Do you not understand what I am saying?

Break it down then

% of people Unemployed because:

1. Not looking
2. Homeless
3. Stay at home mother
4. Lazy
5. In school
6. Lazy

I would like to see an absolute figure about who has a job and who doesn't. Of course you'll find plenty of people that either don't need to work because they run the household or their parents and richs and thus they don't need to work. So I understand the desire to find the number of people that are looking to work as opposed to people not looking. But as I said an overall figure would be great to see aswell.

I know plenty of people that stopped looking for work for long periods of time becuase they simply couldn't get a job for various reasons (mostly their own fault, not always however). But even though they didn't have the desire to work, doesn't mean they aren't a burden to the economy.

Hence why both figures would be useful. I'd love to see how many people in the economy actually are employed contrasted with who aren't (for whatever reason). It'd be illuminating to contrast the two figures for emloyment rate and would give you a far better view of the economy as a whole.

No, you just remove those numbers from the equation, just like elderly, children, handicapped to the point of incapable of working, etc. So instead of there being 300million people total there is 250million ... etc. Basically you don't count them at all.

I am fine with that, if you still counted those on  government assistance.

So someone unwilling to work but on welfare or unemployment, is unemployed.

I can't for the life of me understand how someone can not be counted as "unemployed", but still get an unemployment check. 

Not to be rude, but who cares if you're fine with it, you're leaving.

Because in a perfect world, the US would get fixed, and I would stay. The first step in finding a solution, is identifying the problem. When you lie about the facts, it's hard for the american people to see the problems that need to be fixed (why they lie about them).

Yes, that would work, the way it is now, those people staying at home for whatever reason are counted as "employed" which I do not agree with.

Issues with Government statistic manipulation (including this unemployment debate) goes far beyond the USA. The whole employed-not employed measurements are almost identical to the UK, for example. Am  I not allowed to participate because I'm not from the USA (well, I'm actually there right now, but, you know what I mean)?