I'm glad to see that Paul took some time to explain why the unemployment rate is not a good indicator of the strength of the economy. I always try to inform people about this whenever the opportunity arises. So, what the unemployment rate is, is the percentage of people who are in the labour force who are without a job and to be in the labour force you must have a job or have actively looked for a job within the last 4 weeks. Which is exactly what Paul said.

What I want to add is that while the unemployment rate is not a good indicator of the strength of the economy it is a good indicator of a contracting or growing economy. When the economy is contracting many people loose their job and the unemployment rate goes up as everyone knows. This is what is reported in the press and is true but this is only half the truth. The other half is that the unemployment rate can rise when the economy is growing and businesses start hiring. This seems a bit counter-intuitive but it is not that hard to understand. What is happening is that once jobs become available, those chronically unemployed that are now not in the labour force learn about the new jobs and go from the 'not in the labour force' group into the unemployed group in mass by actively seeking employment. This typically goes unreported in the press and people don't hear about it. So in the end a high unemployment rate indicates a changing economy and a low rate indicates a stable economy.

My only critisism of this post is that there was not a link to the data. So I'll supply that here:

The BLS page for unemployment rate. Note the rise in unemployment starting in 2008.:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

The BLS page for the labour force participation rate. Note the steady decline stating in 2008.:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

Note that the unemployment rate goes up as the participation rate declines and when the participation rate levels off the unemployment rate returns to normal. Even with all the stimulus money and associated debt accrued within the last 9 years, we have only stabilized. Not recovered.

One last item. When you look at data on the BLS site, pay attention to the details. The data I linked to are for 16 year olds and over. Looking at different groups will give you different results. Most of the time, small differences but some times, big differences. Also, pay attention to the definitions of the terms. Below are the links to the defining pages of unemployment and not in the labour force.

Unemployment glossary entry:
https://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm#U

Labour force and not in the labour force glossary entries:
https://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm#L
https://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm#N