>"The reported U-3 unemployment rate is measuring the rate of full-time job loss in the economy. That makes a good barometer of the economy as it can describe if job losses are accelerating or not."

I think this is a perceptive statement; U-3 is most like the derivative of unemployment, so it's sensitive to changes, but not to steady-state issues.

We should probably look at U-6 to help understand where we stand long-term, and U-3 to get a glimpse of whether things are getting better or worse. Unfortunately, I don't think many people want to think about these issues separately, so they'll only want one number.