Speedwell

I don't see why you should not count holiday, summer, or seasonal workers as workers. After all, many people are living on whatever work they can get, even if it's two or more part-time or temporary jobs. They still count.

Michael

They can be included but does that give an accurate picture of the economy? Many are only working to pick up extra change. For instance my aunt used to only work during the Christmas holidays and only make a small amount of money even though her husband makes plenty of money, many students have college paid by daddy, grants, or loans and only work during the summer for money to spend on parties, spring breaks, and luxuries, and many retirees only work part time to supplement their pensions. Therefore many are in minimum wage jobs because they don't want to or can't work that much. Even if minimum wage increased by 25% for them, we are not talking about a lot of money. Unfortunately there is no way to determine which minimum wage part timers want to work more hours but just can't find a job.

In my opinion, percentage at minimum wage, medium income, and unemployment rates would ideally like to based on the number of people that want to work full time since that reflects how well the economy is performing more accurately.

However I do agree that it can be counted either way depending on what you are trying to determine.