Well let’s start with 8% unemployment is significantly less tha 25 million people. 25 million people is 8% of the entire population. While 0–17 and 70–100 yos have an extremely low employment rate, they are not figured in employment statistics.
Anecdotal evidence is unreliable. If half the people you know are unemployed that doesn’t prove anything about the unemployment rate. If you live in an area with 1 major employer and they close down it may be that everyone you know is unemployed but that doesn’t prove anything nationwide. Just as the fact that I don’t personally know anyone who is unemployed doesn’t mean the employment statistics are good.
What we can look at is comparative statistics over the last 50 years. The current unemployment rate is approximately the same as 1982 (9.7%) during the Reagan administration which many Americans regard as a ‘golden era’ in our economy. In fact that figure is worse than today’s 9%+ because fewer women were in the labor market. With a greater % of women included in today’s figures and the smaller military employment we are more comparable to the 7.6% average unemployment seen all through the 80’s. That is to say, the sky wasn’t falling then and it isn’t falling now.
What did happen then was the govt tried to spend it’s way out then with military and other nonproductive and foreign investment projects while ignoring vital domestic priorities. The current plan is to create jobs here that will provide tax $$ here while maintaining the infrastructure here.