

If a half-percentage-point increase in unemployment rate isn’t ugly enough for you, there’s more from your government statisticians: almost a full percentage point jump in a broader measure of unemployment.

The Labor Department reported today that its most comprehensive measure of joblessness hit 14.8% in February, from 13.9% in January. That’s just about 1 out of 7 Americans who are either unemployed and looking for a job, want a job but stopped looking, or part-timers who want full-time jobs.

We’ve already blown through the prior high point of the data series, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics started in 1994. An even broader (since discontinued) series hit 15% in late 1982, and we’re likely to fly right through that one next month.

The 8.1% official unemployment rate, up from 7.6% in January, only counts people who are available for work and actively looked for a job in the prior four weeks. The 14.8% figure (known as the “U-6” by the BLS) includes everyone in the 8.1% figure, plus people who say they want a job and looked for work recently, along with people working part-time because they couldn’t get a full-time schedule.

How high can the U-6 go? Just looking at forecasts for the main unemployment rate, the broader measure would hit 17% by the end of next year. Some economists say 18% to 20% — 1 out of 5 people unemployed in some way — wouldn’t be terribly surprising. If employers aren’t hiring, job hunters would be more likely to give up hope and stop looking even if they do want jobs. After the 2001 recession, employers took roughly two years to resume meaningful hiring and competition was stiff for the jobs available. Anyone searching for a job during this recession is already aware of that grim reality. –Sudeep Reddy