For the non-Americans, or just those not familiar with how numbers are massaged by the US government, this is NOT a measure of the people who are out of work. It's the number of people on government unemployment assistance / welfare. It only lasts for a certain amount of time and then once a person is dropped from this dole, the official measure of 'unemployment' goes down.
If you want to learn how many people are out of work, it's significantly more difficult and estimates tend to vary wildly depending on who's doing the math.
When the talking heads on TV and the AI's writing "news" articles talk about unemployment they don't tend to mention the measure they're using. And it's almost always the best looking one, at least if they like the current President.
If you want to learn how many people are out of work, it's significantly more difficult and estimates tend to vary wildly depending on who's doing the math.