http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-16/whats-real-unemployment-rate-us
"By my reckoning, roughly 60% of the civilian work force is fully employed and 40% are marginally employed (i.e. earning less than $15,000 annually) or unemployed. Since full-time workers even at minimum wage earn close to $15,000 annually, I think it is fair to use that as the cut-off for fully employed. The BLS counts 121 million people as usually work full-time, but given only 100 million workers earn $15,000 or more, this doesn't add up unless we include self-employed people earning very little who are counted as full-time workers."
The above link sheds some light on the real unemployment rate in the USA.
Both immigration and so called "free trade" have had an impact on the American worker, but, the dirty little secret is that it is INTENTIONAL!
Supply side economics was meant to thwart inflation, it was diametrically opposed to demand side or " Keynesian-economics
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-keynesian-economics.htm
The American worker has been intentionally assaulted and ripped off by his own government to prevent inflation, a simple definition of which is "too many dollars chasing too few goods".
The American worker had too much spending power or discretionary spending money, this resulted in the value of the dollar shrinking. This hurt the wealthy because they were the people with the most dollars. Most workers saw regular pay increases and "cola" or cost of living adjustments.
The demand for the worker was high because the demand for the goods that he produced was high, he was valuable and was paid well, he had money and wanted to purchase more, the demand for goods kept rising as did his pay. You see here a cycle, the loser was really the rich guy, he was always trying to find a hedge against inflation, gold was one of his favorites. I remember shipping
hundreds of South African Krugerrands out to people in the '70's.
Reagan came along with his answer, Supply side economics, which basically meant to put money in to the hands of the wealthy and take away the demand side by lowering the need for workers, hence the demand for goods and the need for workers, having an impact of lowering the workers true wages.
This coupled with globalization, which ironically has resulted in a move towards an equitable redistribution of poverty as opposed to the Marxist redistribution of wealth.
So, hell yes, the unemployment rate that we are fed is pure bull shit.