Unemployment Higher Than Reported

Writing in The Washington Post, Catherine Rampell tries to answer the question: why haven't I had a raise in several years? After considering (and rejecting) several reasons, she finally lands on the right one:

The main reason that wages haven’t risen, though, is that the job market is not nearly as “tight” as the headline unemployment rate makes it appear. Nine million workers are currently counted as unemployed. But another 6 million are sitting on the sidelines, wanting to work yet not officially tallied among the unemployed because they’re not actively applying for jobs.

Labor-force participation rates remain shockingly low, even among Americans in their prime working-age years. This shadow surplus of workers takes the pressure off employers to raise wages, whatever their protestations about labor shortages.

There is no shortage of working age people without jobs.  So long as this surplus persists, don't expect much wage growth.

It isn't clear how many "discouraged workers" even want to rejoin the workforce. Many on disability will choose to continue in poorly paid "early retirement" over the hassles of better paid employment. Obviously, the greater the income differential between remaining on disability and potential wages, the more who will choose to seek work.