HAROLD EVANS: Can Barack Obama Turn Things Around? “The official rate of 10 per cent understates the gravity. A detailed study by MB Zuckerman suggests that the real unemployment rate is a staggering 22 per cent. The official figure does not include the million men and women who have given up, it does not describe the demoralisation of the six million who have been out of work for 28 weeks or more, nor the millions who get by with odd jobs; what the Daily Beast website has called ‘the gig economy’.”