Originally Posted by TheDoc

Not really anything new, it's always been this way.

Statistically it's a wash.. which isn't factored into that graph. People that get benefits cut off or they end, often end up getting jobs. It may not be full time, it might be cash under the table, or it could be a real job, but all of those balances aren't added back in either - they can't be tracked.

So it's better, to use the active unemployment numbers as a gauge of how things are going and keep the unknown out of the numbers.