But the people ARE available, that is what you don't get, and they actually DO need jobs. Person X COULD have been hired in July IF the economy was creating enough jobs that she felt it was worthwhile to apply. Her apathy is commentary on the job market, not on her willingness to work.
You fail to see the real issue here. Person X could spend every day reading job ads, but if they never find a job to apply for they don't show up on the U-3 statistics because they don't meet the criteria for "unemployed". It doesn't mean that person X isn't looking.
What percentage of unemployed people do you think fit your Paris Hilton example versus my example?
It's already tracked by BLS.
They are "marginally attached", meaning they are willing to work, have been actively looking in the last 12 months but didn't meet the "unemployment" criteria (ie. active in the Unemployment system) in 4 weeks. They are included in the U-6 numbers but not in the U-3 and therefore U-6 is a FAR better measure of how many jobs the country needs to create than is U-3.
And the "marginally attached" people "could have been working". The fact that U-3 ignores this group of people is why we can celebrate simply because it drops. It's like a refugee camp celebrating that there are fewer people in line for rice while ignoring that many people are too weak to get in line.
So you are saying that nobody should use U-3 to trumpet job market improvement? Are you saying that anyone trumpeting the U-3 numbers as a positive sign for the economy are using them wrong? Well, hello. Welcome to my friggin' point!
No, that is analogous to your silly argument of how U-3 numbers are used. In a round about way you agree with my point that the U-3 numbers are piss poor for tracking the actual pain in the job market, you are just too myopic to see that that is precisely how people try to use the U-3 number.
My whole point is that if someone wanted to use a BLS statistic to actually track improvement in the job market then U-6 is a far more appropriate statistic.