The chart below is the result of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In red the "Official Unemployment" rate is shown, in blue "U-6 Unemployment"* is shown, and in green the spread of these two measures of unemployment is shown.
U-5 Unemployment measures:"Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force", which some argue is a more accurate way of measuring employment.
As you can see if we used the U-6 measure we would be reporting unemployment as 14.3% vs 7.9% as of May 2012.
