Add a category to the list in the earlier post on "Who Are the Unemployed," according to former Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas president Bob McTeer, now writing for the National Center for Policy Analysis:
I recently talked to executives in the construction business who gave me a perspective that shouldn't have been new to me, but was. They said that, in practice, many lower-level, lower-wage workers collect unemployment benefits and also work a day or two a week "off the books," and that this combined income compared favorably with wages-only income. Consequently, many workers—not just a few, but many—are content with their unemployed status.