Latest U.S. weekly jobless claims: 255,000
Last time these claims were this low: November, 1973
Latest U.S. figure for real non-supervisory wage: $9.01 per hour
First time this wage hit that level: December, 1971
(Sources: “U.S. jobless claims drop to 41-1.2 year low,” by Lucia Mutikani, Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/23/us-jobless-idUSKCN0PX1EO20150723 and calculated from “Average Hourly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, 1982-84 Dollars,” Series Id: CES0500000032, Seasonally Adjusted, Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National), Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject, Data Tools, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet)
If they were to count the long term unemployed, many of them former STEM workers, unemployment would be so high that they can’t deny it.
after studying it for nearly a decade, I believe it is closer to the blue line on this chart.
http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-emp.gif?hl=ad&t=1435845509