The federal government reported that the unemployment rate fell to 5.7% for December. Sounds like good news, doesn't it? The problem is, these numbers are always somewhat deceptive because they don't include the 300,000 people who simply gave up looking for work last month. The government just doesn't bother to count those people.
But wait, there's more. Another key indication of the national employment situation is the measure of how many jobs were either created or lost in a given month. Economists had predicted that there would be about 130,00 to 150,000 jobs created in December. The actual number turns out to be 1,000. That's right, a mere 1,000 jobs in the entire country were created last month.
Of course, this doesn't stop George Bush from trumpeting his "economic recovery", as jobless as it may be. Hopefully, the Dems will begin continue beating him over the head with these numbers and pointing out the fact that unless there are some radical changes, Bush will be the first president since Hoover to actually have a net loss of jobs during his tenure, a very sad record indeed.