(VIDEO) 'Real' Unemployment Rate Shows Far More Jobless

(VIDEO) 'Real' Unemployment Rate Shows Far More Jobless

Published: Thursday, 2 Aug 2012 | 2:52 PM ET
By: Jeff Cox
CNBC.com Senior Writer

While the national unemployment rate paints a grim picture, a look at individual states and their so-called real jobless rates becomes even more troubling.

The government's most widely publicized unemployment rate measures only those who are out of a job and currently looking for work. It does not count discouraged potential employees who have quit looking, nor those who are underemployed — wanting to work full-time but forced to work part-time.

For that count, the government releases a separate number called the "U-6," which provides a more complete tally of how many people really are out of work.

The numbers in some cases are startling.

Those numbers compare especially unfavorably to the national rate, high in itself at 14.9 percent though off its record peak of 17.2 percent in October 2009.

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