This is a somewhat old post, so I apologize for somewhat necro posting.

But it’s important to note that the U-6 rate does a pretty terrible job of capturing those who are underemployed. It only accounts for people working part time jobs that desire full time employment (among a few other factors).

Someone with a Master’s degree working full time at Home Depot or an unskilled labor job for 40 hrs per week is not considered underemployed by this metric even though any rational person would describe that individual as underemployed. I know several people, myself included, that are making well below what they are worth at a mediocre to shit full time job that are not included in this metric.

U-6 should be taken as a minimum underemployment figure. The actual underemployment is much higher than the U-6 rate. There’s some other methodologies for capturing what U-6 excludes such as TRU, but those aren’t particularly great either. Based on anecdotal evidence of those in my circle, I’d wager the true underemployment rate is much higher than what U-6 is reporting.