I don't follow at all. Which of these is supposed to correspond to "aggregate economic health"? The problem is that unemployment, particularly U-3, is a bad signal for aggregate economic health by itself. As is GDP. You need an signal for wealth distribution to get a sense of how a given person can interpret to understand how well the economy is serving them. At the very least.

EDIT: Of course, the ultimate issue is people wanting to cherry-pick metrics to push their polemic. If you have any solutions to that I'm all ears. We've been able to articulate an accurate understanding all along, but that doesn't make for easy headlines or simplistic campaign platforms.

> Which of these is supposed to correspond to "aggregate economic health"?

There's no single metric for aggregate economic health in the same way that there's no single metric for aggregate server health. There's a problem in expectations when people complain about U-3; its not supposed to be a measure of economic health. And thats the point being made here.

And yet, that's exactly how U-3 is used by everyone but the labor economists that define it. Hence why this conversation is happening in the first place.

> that's exactly how U-3 is used by everyone but the labor economists that define it

No, it’s not. Enterprise demand planning, market research, hell even political analysis for donors and politicians——everyone who has a use for the data knows how to use them.

If you want to see the contrast in treatment, compare the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal publications versus free media, e.g. CNBC or TV news.

Yes, and the fault is on the people using U-3 that way, not the economists. Talking about the problems with U-3 implies that the economists messed up. The issue is that everyone is looking for a quick 5-second way of making conclusions about a complicated topic.

We don't need a new metric. There is no new metric that will satisfy that criteria. The only solution is to improve the way we talk about the economy.