Unemployment Doldrums Questions

This is just a short quick observation.  Other than Octobers increase of 968,000 people to the bucket of those who quit looking for work according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) the last two months have been really dull.   I keep wondering how the BLS can keep 10.9 Million extra people in the bucket who quit looking for work (Not in the Labor Force).    The extra expanded from 2.2 million in 2007 to 10.3 million in 2013 and has stayed relatively the same since.  Right now that total number is 95.5 Million, but if we adjust for normal percent of the population then the number should be 84.5 million in that bucket.    The good news is that at least the extra bucket has not significantly been expanding in the last four years.   But why has the number not been decreasing?

How do eleven million people give up looking for work?   I have a hard time imagining that many people don't want to work and/or are too discouraged to work.  If I had those extra eleven million back into the unemployment numbers then the true unemployment percent is 10.2%, not the wonderful 4.09% reported.   Of course, I'm probably making it too simple, right?!  


Until next