Excellent work here. Does your calculation take into account the quirky way that the US counts unemployment? By that I mean that they only count active job seekers instead of those who have given up looking? I know that you discussed this in your October diary.
Also, the "excess" part of your formula is, I believe, a sound way to handle this. It demonstrates some unusual characteristics of the total US labor force that does skew the comparability.
The "excess" part is slightly unfair, but no more so than any other way of doing it. There are all sorts of structural differences that skew things. As I'm sure you know, if you apply OECD standards to third world countries you get almost zero unemployment because everyone either works a few hours a week or dies.
