Curious, yet entertaining: President Obama claims credit for disastrous unemployment report

The official unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was released earlier today. True to form, President Obama immediately grabbed TOTUS, found some cameras, positioned himself in front of them, and started claiming credit.

President Obama today called the job numbers released this morning “positive news”... The numbers showed a drop in the nation’s unemployment rate to 9.4 percent in December.

“Overall, the decline in the unemployment rate is positive news, but it only underscores the importance of us not letting up on our efforts... We know these numbers can bounce around from month to month, but the trend is clear,” Obama added, noting that this marks 12 straight months of private-sector job growth for the first time since 2006. “The economy added 1.3 million jobs last year, and each quarter was stronger than the previous quarter, which means that the pace of hiring is beginning to pick up.”

The president said they are seeing “optimistic” economic forecasts for the year ahead, in part due to the tax cuts package he signed into law last month, including a payroll tax cut for workers and tax breaks to encourage investment, innovation and hiring in businesses.

Back in the little land we like to call "Reality", the situation is dire.

The reported unemployment rate fell a substantial .4% to 9.4%. However, much of that that gain is a statistical mirage. The BLS reports a whopping 260,000 people dropped out of the work force. As a result the [labor] participation rate fell to a new low of 64.3%.

In short, the percentage of Americans participating in the workforce fell to an all-time low. And this depressing statistic helped artificially slice the unemployment rate.

Bear in mind, were it not for millions of people allegedly dropping out of the labor force over the last year, the unemployment rate would be over 11% right now...

The official unemployment rate is 9.4%. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is... 16.7%. Moreover, both the official rate and U-6 would be much higher were it not for huge numbers of people dropping out of the workforce.

Things are much worse than the reported numbers would have you believe.

Not to worry, folks -- President Obama, with all of his vast private sector experience, is on the job.

What could possibly go wrong?