Smoke and Mirrors: The Truth About US Unemployment

Smoke and Mirrors: The Truth About US Unemployment | Somewhat Reasonable:
"...Obama’s use of the unemployment rate as a weapon to inflict political damage on Republicans is nothing new.
For most of Obama’s presidency, he’s been touting his economic policies and how successful they have allegedly been at reducing unemployment rates (when in fact all recession recoveries reduce unemployment rates), all the while intentionally misleading people about what the unemployment rate actually represents.
Contrary to the popular impression, the unemployment rate is not the percentage of the population looking for work. 
The unemployment rate is simply the percentage of a state or nation’s economy that isn’t employed and doesn’t fall into one of a number of excluded categories.
A person who has “given up” looking for work, for instance, is not considered “unemployed” by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, even if that person is still interested in getting a job.
Individuals who retire early because they can’t find a good job are also excluded.
In addition, state unemployment figures can be quite confusing at times because people who leave the state because they can’t find work are not counted as “unemployed.”
In short, unemployment rates often change in large part because the labor force pool grows or shrinks, not because of actual economic growth. .."