It's Labor Day 2009, but it feels more like 1983. That's the last time such a large percentage of America's work force was unemployed.

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/07/solis.hilda.gi.art.jpg caption="Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis urges the unemployed not to become discouraged."]

The nation's jobless rate of 9.7 percent is troubling enough but it dramatically understates the real depth of the problem. There are between 25 and 30 million people in this country who are ready, willing and able to work full-time, but can't find work.

Think of that – in the world's most powerful economy, the size of the out-of-work population is slightly more than that of New Jersey, South Carolina and Illinois combined.

Here's how it breaks down. There are 14.9 million classified as unemployed. Another 9.1 million are considered "under-employed" – meaning they want full-time work and are actively looking for it but have settled for part-time work instead.

Yet another 2.3 million are called "marginally attached" to the work force. They are ready and able to work and looked for a job sometime in the last year but stopped looking in the last four weeks. They are not counted in the nation's unemployment rate.

And of those "marginally attached," there are 758,000 "discouraged" workers, who have simply stopped looking for a job because they think there is no work for them.

Among those who are not counted: Stay-at-home moms who need to go back to work to feed their families. Discouraged workers who have struggled to find employment since the last recession ended in 2003. Those who have already retired, but have not worked in several years, and now must go back to work because their home values have dropped and their savings plans have taken a hit. Add up the uncounted and those who are counted, and that's 26.3 million workers.

Those are the faces not even counted in the unemployment rate. Within the jobless numbers, there are hundreds of thousands of new college graduates entering the job market for the very first time and entering it unemployed.

There are factory workers and roofers and retail clerks and bankers. There are small business owners who have held on through two grueling years but couldn't keep their businesses going any longer. There are music teachers and guidance counselors and school aides axed by school boards because budget cuts mean something has to give.

And the group with the highest percentage unemployed are teenagers. Teen unemployment now tops 25 percent, a record high.

It's a major political challenge for this White House.

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