The REAL unemployment numbers

How, I ask myself, do you say that a rise from 9.7% unemployment to 9.9% unemployment is encouraging? Oh, I understand that some are interpreting this that discouraged workers are now reentering the market. This, however, does not make sense to me. This would make sense if the discouraged workers who are not originally counted in the unemployment numbers were counted in the actual unemployment numbers. What, you say? There is such a number? What could it be?

The BLS's U-6 number, which is sometimes called the "real" unemployment rate, because it takes into discouraged workers who aren't looking for work ticked up in April from 16.9% to 17.1%.