The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the December job numbers this morning, and boy, do they suck. The economy added about 74,000 jobs in December -- roughly half what it needs to do just to keep up with population growth, nevermind dent the unemployment rate -- and yet the unemployment rate fell from 7 percent to 6.7 percent. How can this be? Turns out the story is the same as it has been since 2009 -- the unemployment rate is falling only because people are giving up on finding a job, and the BLS doesn't count people as "unemployed" if they've quit looking.
In a post by Allahpundit at Hot Air, we get pointed to this article by Sean Davis over at The Federalist. Davis highlights how truly bad the jobs report is with a simple graph showing what the unemployment rate would be if the labor force participation rate were the same as it was in June 2009, when the last recession officially ended:
The only thing driving the drop in the unemployment rate is the historic low in workforce participation. People are still giving up on finding a job, years after the recession supposedly ended. You call that a recovery?
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