U.S. unemployment fell to 7.8 percent in September. But that
doesn't mean the other 92.2 percent of adults are working. The
unemployment rate only measures people who have searched for
jobs in the last four weeks, while millions of other out-of-work
Americans aren't included. But some economists think there's a
better way to measure the health of the job market. Along with
the official unemployment rate, the Department of Labor also
calculates something called the employment-population ratio,
which measures the percent of the U.S. adult population that has
a job. The rate currently stands at 58.7 percent. While it jumps
around slightly from month to month, it has essentially been
stuck there for three years -- close to the lowest level since
the 1980s. That paints a much bleaker picture of the job market
than the unemployment rate, which has fallen considerably in the
last year. "The employment-to-population ratio is the best
measure of labor market conditions and it currently shows that
there has been almost