“If the actual (involuntary) unemployment rate is 3.9% or 4.2% does it matter?”

Actually, it does matter- because 3.9% of the population turns out to be 6.2 million people (seasonally adjusted as quoted by last months Unemployment Report).

1 percentage point matters when you’re talking about millions of people.

Secondly, I understand that it isn’t necessarily important that the Unemployment Rate figure represents the total Unemployment Rate in the U.S- I stated several times throughout the article that the trend over time should be the most noted element.

However, until yesterday I hadn’t even ever heard of the Labor Force Participation Rate or the Duration of Unemployment Rate. I can’t count on both hands the number of times I hear “Unemployment Rate” on a daily basis though. I am simply saying that we (citizens, politicians, and media spokespeople) should talk about all of these statistics equally instead of just focusing on the most convenient one.