High Underemployment Sucking American Productivity

Unemployment has been the big headline grabber over the past 4 years, but underemployment has been a chronic problem that hasn't gotten its fair share of coverage in the MSM. As I explained in my post about how the unemployment rate is derived, underemployment, as defined by the Bureau of Lies and Subterfuge, is working part-time hours while desiring full-time work. This definition has nothing to do with skill utilization or pay scale. So, while the BLS is reporting a 15.3% U-6 unemployment rate, which translates to just under 14 million underemployed, there are in reality 16-18 million Americans working jobs below their pay grade, or "outside their career paths", we might say.

If, over the last 4 years, 16-18 million Americans have been working jobs they aren't optimally suited for (in addition to the unfortunate displaced workers who have taken McJobs, imagine a laid-off engineer working on a factory floor or a laid-off corporate manager working as a tax preparer), it would only make sense that American productivity (total economic output divided by total economic input) would be flattened. Indeed, productivity growth in United States has been anemic since the Great Recession, with the exception of 2009, when businesses cut their organizations down to the bone. Reduced productivity growth is yet another impediment to economic recovery, which the Fed and Washington have significantly impeded.