Who are the 23 million unemployed?

The Economic Policy Institute, a labor-backed Washington research group, has provided a basic breakdown of who the 23 million Americans are who are loosely classified  as “looking for work.”

According to EPI economist Heidi Shierholz,  the number obviously starts with the 12.3 million people who meet the official definition of unemployment -- jobless workers who are actively seeking work. Second, it includes the 8.3 million workers who are working part time but who want and are available for full-time work (“involuntary” part-timers). Third, it includes the 2.5 million people who want a job and are available to work, but have given up actively seeking work (“marginally attached” workers).

These three groups together -- 23.1 million -- make up the group commonly referred to as the “underemployed.”

But Shierholz goes one step further.

Who is not counted in that 23 million? Workers who are underemployed in a “skills or experience” sense, for example, a mechanical engineer working as a restaurant host. Unfortunately, there is no official measure that counts people who are underemployed in this way.

The graph below shows how the number of “underemployed” workers has evolved since 2000. The number of underemployed workers increased over the weak business cycle of 2000–2007 from 10 million in the fourth quarter of 2000 to 13.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. It then shot up in the Great Recession to a peak of 26.9 million in Oct. 2009 before modestly improving to its current level.