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In November 2021, 23.6% of the labor force was functionally unemployed, meaning they are seeking, but unable to find, full-time employment paying above the poverty level, which we conservatively peg at $20,000 a year. By contrast, the headline number we all heard about was 4.2%.

Even before the pandemic, nearly one in three Californian households struggled to pay for basic necessities, according to the United Ways of California. During the pandemic, a report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity found that 4.8 million Californians were seeking, but unable to find, full-time work that paid a living wage.

Forget shipping delays. A deluge of truck traffic and abandoned containers at the Port of Los Angeles creates daily hazards for residents in the neighboring community of Wilmington.

Statewide, 85.7% of the jobs lost during COVID are back. Plus: Wages are up, unemployment rate falls again and another look at the true unemployed.

Despite all the buzz about the “Great Resignation,” labor shortages, and 10 million unfilled job openings, this is the underlying reality: Many tens of millions of Americans are jobless for lack of job opportunity.

Memphis lost more living-wage jobs during the pandemic than most metros around the country, according to a new analysis from a think tank focused on economic equity for the middle and lower class.

While the Twin Cities metro’s unemployment rate is technically a low 2.6%, the “true” number of people who are unemployed — by one analysis — is much higher than that.

While a 7.5% unemployment rate is dismal, it may also understate the true nature of the job situation in California.

California’s official unemployment rate is 7.5%. But a newer method of measuring unemployment reveals a far larger portion of the state is struggling to find full-time employment that pays enough to cover the cost of living.

For some, September’s headline figure is woefully misleading, as it is every month. What if the “true” unemployment rate is actually closer to 22%?

There is an enormous (but invisible) supply of labor that companies can hire to keep costs down.

Economic recoveries should be judged not simply by how many jobs come online, but by whether the jobs created pay a reliably middle-class wage.

It has been an interesting month, with some overall good news for the economy – particularly for low- and middle-income Americans.

LISEP was born out of my longstanding focus on the economic realities for middle- and low-income Americans, which has become even more central, I believe, for our shared American experience.

After decades of calls to expand the Community Reinvestment Act’s anti-redlining obligations to nonbanks, the idea is going mainstream thanks to key endorsements from states and even the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

“If we walk around America and walk around Washington D.C., we see some things that are quite disturbing,” says former Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig. “You see huge homeless communities in many cities and towns in America, you see dilapidation in areas that used to be lovely. And you begin to say, well, if we have the low unemployment rates that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has put out, why do we have the situation that we see?”

The gap between White Americans’ wages and everybody else's grew even larger in the first quarter of this year, according to new data from LISEP, the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

A new cadre of financial regulators can transform the financial world’s role in the fight against prejudice and inequality.

Policymakers shouldn’t be fooled by a bullish stock market or what appears to be plummeting unemployment rates. Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas.

American workers are making less than official estimates show, according to new analysis. U.S. workers earn a median weekly wage of $797, or $41,456 a year, according to the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, which analyzed data up until 2020. That’s 19% below official estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a widely-used measure of pay.

Low wages, risky jobs put LGBTQ+ people, BIPOC and women in the line of fire

The country needs this amount of relief — or more.

Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity Chair Gene Ludwig joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the impact of unemployment amid the coronavirus pandemic.

As the world of finance has changed, the Community Reinvestment Act’s reach has failed to keep pace. Of most concern, large portions of the lending marketplace have been claimed by nonbank lenders that are not subject to the CRA’s regulations. Today, that disparity threatens to undermine the spirit of equality the CRA intended nearly a half-century ago.

These days the headline unemployment rate isn’t just an undercount, it actually paints an alternate reality that masks the degree to which low- and moderate-income people are hurting. As a result, policymakers believe these Americans are better off than they actually are.

Of the various measures of the coronavirus pandemic’s comet strike on the U.S. economy, one especially reveals the size of the crater: Over a six-month period, nearly 8 million Americans have tumbled into poverty.

The true unemployment rate for women isn't going down, as official statistics suggest. In fact, it's going up — at least according to the most recent analysis of official data from LISEP, the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

Official government figures show that unemployment around the U.S. has fallen sharply since peaking at nearly 15% in April as the coronavirus was shuttering businesses left and right. Yet the jobless rate as depicted in headlines offers a skewed picture of employment today, failing to capture the real financial pressure bearing down on millions of Americans, according to a new study.

The winner of the race for the White House will face a generation of low-to-middle income Americans struggling to get back to work because of a health crisis not seen in more than 100 years.

Former Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig has written a book, The Vanishing American Dream, about the plight of middle- and low-income Americans.

A person who is looking for a full-time job that pays a living wage — but who can't find one — is unemployed. If you accept that definition, the true unemployment rate in the U.S. is a stunning 26.1%, according to an important new dataset shared exclusively with "Axios on HBO."

Present markets will probably prompt lenders to serve wealthier individuals and bigger companies first, exacerbating inequality. Fortunately, regulators have within their grasp several tools to direct lending to the businesses and low-income families — including many minority communities — where it will do the most good.

Outrage over generous loans to well-heeled businesses is obscuring another troubling problem: The Federal Reserve’s efforts to preserve liquidity in the corporate debt market are, however inadvertently, sending wealth up the income scale, exacerbating inequality.

To read the economic reports coming out of Washington, you might assume that the American economy is firing on all cylinders. But beneath this rosy picture is a much darker reality.

GDP and unemployment numbers support the notion that times are good. They say our economic policy is sound, and the status quo is working. But a different picture emerges looking at the homeless people gathered by the Federal Reserve building in DC, or in visiting my hometown, York, Pennsylvania, where wages have stagnated and factories have closed.