Unemployment declined by 0.3% in December 2013!
That has to be good news!
But it really isn't, because in the meantime...
347,000 people gave up looking for work.
In one month!
And since the economy only created 74,000 jobs in December 2013, we can conclude that...
More than four times as many people gave up looking for work as got new jobs.
Those people don't even count as unemployed any more, and there are more and more of them all the time.
In just the past year, as the population of potential workers rose by nearly 2.4 million, the labor force has contracted by 548,000.
The number of potential workers who are not participating in the labor force has grown by 2.9 million.
548,000 fewer workers even looking for jobs than last year!
That leaves us with 2,900,000 able-bodied economic non-persons, not employed, not "unemployed"...
2,900,000 nothings in the middle of the Great American Nowhere.
That's enough to staff an army of the poor, if they ever get organized.