Unemployment is universally recognized as a bad thing. While economists and academics make convincing arguments that there is a certain natural level of unemployment that cannot be erased, elevated unemployment imposes significant costs on the individual, the society and the country. Worse yet, most of the costs are of the dead loss variety where there are no offsetting gains to the costs that everyone must bear (Depending on how it 's measured). Unemployment represents the number of people in the work force who want to work but do not have a job. It is generally stated as a percentage and calculated by dividing the number of people who are unemployed by the total work force. The work force is made up of those people who want to work; it excludes people who are retired, disabled, and able to work but not currently looking for a position; for instance, they may be taking care of children or going to college.

The economic costs of unemployment are probably more obvious when viewed through the lens of the national checkbook. Unemployment leads to higher payments from state and federal governments for unemployment benefits ($2.96 billion worth of benefits were paid out in February 2017), food assistance, and Medicaid. (Sources) At the same time, those governments are no longer collecting the same levels of income tax as before - forcing the government to borrow money (which defers the costs and impacts of unemployment into the future) or cut back on other spending (perhaps