In comments, the superb philosopher of science, Eric Winsberg, gave me a lot of flack for suggesting that inflation numbers Stateside may well be significantly understated. At some point he suggested, "If ANY sensible measure of inflation has been running at anything like 10%/year since the late 90's, then we are all living in a massive depression." Well, it is worth pointing out that official unemployment numbers (still over 9%) seriously understate the situation. For not counted are those that have "left the workforce." What these data show is a massive and rising number of people out of work that are not being counted. Here is a graph taken from one category since 2001. These are numbers in the thousands:
Update: In response to Robbie Williams below, here's a link to a table that splits out this group by age.
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