What would the Great Depression employment rate have been if defined by today's parameters?

[EconomicLiberal]

We all know how much of a joke today's U-3 (read: standard) unemployment rate is. It doesn't include in its formula people who need full-time work but can only obtain part-time work and people who have stopped looking for work.

In 1993, the parameters for the standard unemployment rate were changed to what we have today.

What would the Great Depression employment rate have been if we used today's formula for the standard unemployment rate?

I'd say around 15%.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Good question!!! I don't know the answer. I just know that by today's standards...

I'm not 'unemployed' because I'm not applying for three jobs per week.

[EconomicLiberal]

2. Yes. I have no doubt the real unemployment rate right now is around 13-15%.

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. U-6 in November...

...was 12.5%.

U5 and U6 are the figures calculated the way -- more or less -- the EU does.

[ThomWV]

4. No comparison can be made simply because of the change in farm employment

I believe that prior to the Great Depression more than 90% of the population was essentially self-employed on what were, by today's standards, small family farms. Today less than 5% of Americans work on producing farms and many more of them do so as hired employees than as owner/operators. That shift in employment all by itself would, it seems to me, make meaningful comparisons near impossible.