Last week's jobs report, while not astoundingly good, was generally regarded as a good sign, as over 100,000 jobs were added in September.  The unemployment rate was listed as holding steady at 9.1%.  The purpose of this post is to clarify that unemployment figure.

The 9.1% refers to the number of people who actively sought/applied for a job in the given month, but did not secure one.  Thus, we can say that of every 10 Americans who can work, approximately one of them is looking for work and unable to find it.  That's bad enough, and one of the highest unemployment rates in recent memory.

But I don't think it's the most important figure being measured.  That one equates to 16.5% -- or the number of people out of work, including those who had sought work and/or have now given up, and are not counted as an "active" job seeker.  (This higher figure is also referred to as the "underemployment" rate.)  So with this number, we can say that if we brought 100 Americans into a room, about 16 of them would be out of the work force and/or not bothering any longer to get back into it.

That's a frighteningly high number.

Not surprisingly, the government doesn't advertise this number.  Obviously, they're incentivized to report the lower number, but it's done a disservice to the rest of us trying to grasp the scope of this problem and left most Americans unaware of how bad things have really gotten.

The next time the government releases these metrics (November 4), make sure to check the underemployment rate and not just the unemployment rate.