U.S Unemployment and Underemployment rate at 17 percent

A 17 percent unemployment and underemployment rate. The real problem behind President Barack Obama's surprisingly dropping approval rating and what could be a factor in the Massachusetts Senate Race is a not-so-surprising reason; the combined U.S. unemployment and underemployment rate.

According to Portal Seven and based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the U6 Unemployment Rate is:

The U6 unemployment rate counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment (the more familiar U-3 rate), but also counts "marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons."

Note that some of these part-time workers counted as employed by U-3 could be working as little as an hour a week.

And the "marginally attached workers" include those who have gotten discouraged and stopped looking, but still want to work.

The age considered for this calculation is 16 years and over

The incredible 17 percent rate translates to almost one in five people either working part time or not at all. While the $787 billion Economic Stimulus program has kept America from plunging deeper into a Depression, it has not helped to stop the seemingly chronic high rate of underemployment and unemployment. It's too small.

The problem is that at the time the Stimulus bill was past, it represented at best two to three percent of Gross Domestic Product. But GDP was falling at a projected rate of eight percent per year at the time. While the Stimulus has worked to slow that to a halt, the rate of growth required to make up for the fall, at 3 percent last quarter, is not large enough to counter the economy's collapse. In other words, we still have not enough new jobs for the people who need them.

One solution is to do what some have suggested and that's to give American taxpayers under $100,000 $5,000 each or as one GOP Congressman suggested a $20,000 tax credit. The idea is to stimulate consumption which then causes business growth and employment.

Whatever the case, a taxpayer bailout has not been done, and the economy is not improving. If something's not done, and soon, Democrats will lose more than a few seats in the House and Senate.