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The economic research firm's "True Rate of Unemployment" (TRU) seeks to capture the share of workers that the group defines as "functionally unemployed." This includes not only people who are unemployed and looking for a job, but also those who are involuntarily working part-time and who are earning poverty-level wages, or less than $26,000 annually before taxes.
Other economists cautioned against putting too much weight on alternative measures of labor market health, including TRU.
"An unemployment rate that would be in the 20% range does not line up with anything we see in the U.S. economy," EY-Parthenon chief economist Gregory Daco told CBS News.
Daco said several factors are weighing on job growth. "You see ongoing moderation of wage growth, which is reflective of employers controlling costs, and wanting to make sure they have the right talent and the right skills at the right price, and not spend excessively."
Muted wage growth dampens consumer spending, which drives two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.
"One company's wage bill is another person's income, and in turn their capacity to spend," Daco said. "When I look at potential signs of softness for the U.S. economy, income growth has been trending around zero, adjusted for inflation, and that limits consumer spending growth. It forces some households to make more difficult choices in terms of where they spend their money and how much they spend, and that slows the overall pace of the economy."
Sorry for copying like half the article, there's really not much to it. One research group saying if you count people forced to work part time or who are working full time but making below poverty wages as part of the unemployment % the number is >20%. In response they quote one guy saying "nuh-uh" with nothing to back it up, who then goes on to say jobs aren't growing because wages have stagnated and that when people don't have money to spend the economy slows down.
But there's no way the slowing economy has anything to do with ~15% of the working age population being forced into poverty, no sir that doesn't "line up with anything we see in the US economy" .