RUSH: The CEO of Gallup — I’ve always thought Gallup was part of the State-Run Media. I always thought of Gallup as almost, not quite, but the official pollster of the Obama Regime.

The CEO, Jim Clifton has a piece: “The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment — Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

“Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is ‘down’ to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market. None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right.”

This guy is telling us something — this is striking — you as members of the audience of this program have known for 15 years what the U-6 and the U-3 unemployment numbers are. The U-3 number is what’s reported. And what he’s talking about, the U-6 number, does count people who’ve given up and are no longer working. The number that’s released, this 5.6% number, does not count the millions of people who were unable to find a job in four years and have given up looking. This guy thinks he is issuing breaking news. And, sadly, to a bunch of low-information voters, he is.

So when he says the big lie, 5.6 unemployment, all he’s talking about is the U-6 versus the U-3 number. These are categories, capital U, letter U, 3, it’s just a category, U-6 is another one. But the unemployment number every month that’s reported is U-3. They do not count, as unemployed, people no longer looking. The U-6 number is the real — and that’s up at around 12% right now. And his point, that’s the big lie. The big lie is that real unemployment is closer to 12% than 5.6. Now, you in this audience have known this, for, gosh, how many years? The CEO of Gallup decides to publish it today as though it’s breaking news. And I’m sure to some people it is, sadly.