Editor’s note: This week and next, the Business Desk will feature questions from students in three high schools around the country. Question: Unemployment seems to be far worse than the government’s statistics show (currently just below 10 percent).

Paul Solman: Today’s unemployment data are grim. I began to write “startlingly grim” but then realized that, for those of us on-the-record pessimists with regard to green shoots and recovery, the numbers aren’t startling at all. Having been on the…