Employment number you will not see on your TV tonight

Russ Steele

Tonight you will hear about the dropped from 9.8% to 9.4% in the unemployment numbers,  and how good this is for the Obama Administration. Well maybe it is good news, then again maybe not. 
 
William A. Jacobson, Associate Clinical Professor, Cornell Law School, digs under the hood and finds a much different story. He has posted the details on his blog Legal Insurrection:

Dig just a bit deeper, and you will see that 0.2% of that drop (or half the total drop) was from a decrease in the "participation rate" from 64.5 to 64.3 of the population.  So half of the good news reflects that people have dropped out of the work force and have given up looking for work.

To put this in context, I ran a chart from the BLS website historical statistics database, showing the participation rate over the past 20 years, which shows that we are at a 20-year low:

The other disheartening statistic is reflected in the chart combining the unemployment, marginal and discouraged workers (in short, everyone who is not working but currently or at one time wanted to work, or who is employed part time because full time work was unavailable).  Combine all those and the total is 16.6% up from 16.3% November not seasonally adjusted (seasonally adjusted it is 16.7% down from 17%).  This is the highest number since 1994 (first year data available):

While you are watching the TV news tonight and the reporters are gushing over the falling unemployment numbers, you can share these number with your live in companion, or companions. One of two things will happen, you will be reviled for throwing cold water on the good news, or you will be recognized as a second level thinker who digs for the truth.