Why the unemployment numbers don't tell the whole story

The news was trumpeted today from media outlets everywhere, that the unemployment number dropped to 8.3%. HUZZAHS! were heard from MSNBC so loud that the NYC Police Department had to be called in to quiet the newsroom down. Martin Bashir was so gleeful he nearly peed himself. Twice. But before we begin the revelry, perhaps it might be best to take a closer look at a few other numbers. How about the number 1.2 million. That's a pretty big numero! That is the amount of persons who have left the workforce. They're not even being counted anymore. And most new jobs being created are low wage part time jobs. Part time workers have surged to the highest number ever for one month at 700,000. Here's another number of interest - 1.1 million. That's the number of workers who lost full-time jobs last month. Want some more numbers? How about 57.4%. That's the full-time employment rate of 2000. To get back to that, we'd have to see 21 million new jobs created. (Right now we stand at about 46%.) Compare that with the official estimate of the number of unemployed workers at 12.8 million.

Do the simple math and you can quickly see why today's news isn't even half of the story. If you buy into the governments story that 243,000 jobs were created last month - it would take 7 years to get back where we need to be. But amid all these scary numbers the scariest of all may be 16.2 trillion. That is the new National Debt as of last week. Up almost 7 trillion since Barack Obama took office just 3 years ago. And since he has offered NO plans on Social Security or Medicare reforms (other than scaring seniors and demonizing Republicans) that number will grow at least 1.3 trillion every year - borrowing 40 cents of every dollar the Feds spend. Perhaps these numbers reflect the new normal. If they do, maybe we need to rethink the failed leadership that has brought us here. Demonizing the rich and using class warfare as an election tactic may be the path to re-election. But it won't do squat to save our country and it's future.