Reply #7: the map's starting point is July '07

[northernlights]

so the figures you are looking at are 18 months old. As the poster above pointed out, you have to move the date (drag the lever at the top of the map) to Dec '08 to get the current government reported number.

And as the poster 2 posts above pointed out, the government statistics are skewed. They don't include people who have long fallen off unemployment, returned to school because their old trade has unexpectedly died, are living in their cars or on the street so can't be reached by phone surveys, are slowly drowning PhD's earning minimum wage, and so on.

A more reliable figure would be to count actual employed people filing income taxes, and track that number. They probably do, but are afraid to report it.