I think the definition of unemployment has been contentious for as long as it exists. Axios is choosing to go with the definition of 'People looking for work or working while earning less than 20,000 USD per year'. The employment numbers are naturally going to be higher than when the definition is just 'People earning nothing and looking for work'.

If one takes the living wage as a measure of unemployment, it should also include place of residence IMO. I heard living wage in the bay area is > 100K USD.

I'm not advocating for anything and have no stake. But all these statistics are proxies for how citizens are doing. In general, hardships increase as unemployment goes up, whatever way you measure it. It's usually better to look at all of them jointly, and focus on differences instead of the absolute rates of a statistic.