42% unemployment rate

After his victory in New Hampshire, Donald Trump questioned the unemployment figure of 4.9%.  He said he thought it was probably 28 or 29%, adding he heard it was as high as 42%. 

In the Times today Neil Irwin explained how statisticians arrive at the unemployment rate.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics actually has six unemployment rates.  The one usually used is U-3, the number of people who told a survey that they don’t have a job and want one, and have actively sought a job in the last four weeks.  In January that number was 7.8 million people.  The total labor force is the number of people who have jobs or are looking, which comes out to 158 million.

Mr. Irwin then explained that you can manipulate the figures almost any way you want, and the actual unemployment rate could be 53%.  Of course that includes all those lazy children, all those retired lay-abouts, all those college students, all those high school and grade school students, prisoners, people in asylums, people on disability, and every parent who stays at home voluntarily to care for children.  

Maybe Trump was including some of those in his 42%.