Unemployment Propaganda Buzzkill: Labor-Force Shrunk to Generational Low for November

Well, the new unemployment numbers were released today and the Beltway and Wall Street chattering classes are pretty darn excited. Giddy, even.

Here's Reuters, for instance:

In fact, the numbers are truly awful.

Serious analysts -- like Rick Manning at The Hill -- delved into the facts behind the propaganda.

The headlines read that the unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest point since Obama took office. This is a case where a headline can be 100 percent true and completely wrong in its implications.

If the unemployment rate drop from 7.3 percent down to 7 percent is actually meaningful, the Federal Reserve should immediately end its bond-buying program, called "quantitative easing." One can assume that the economy is rapidly heating up, and we should all be concerned about inflationary risks created by more monetary pumping. When coupled with the net 750,000 new hires reported by the Labor Department over the past three months, the economy must be on fire.

However, the same report that shows the unemployment rate drop is disastrous when comparing data for the past three months.

The Labor Force Participation Rate dropped by 0.2 percentage points in that two-month period, meaning 666,400 fewer people were in the labor force in November than in September, roughly the equivalent of an entire congressional district.

The number of employed people is almost as grim. If you are to believe the unemployment report, only 83,000 more people were employed in November than in September.

The unemployment rate did not drop because of people getting jobs, but instead due to another massive labor drop-out. If this sounds familiar, it is because our nation has seen a staggering drop in the labor participation rate over the past five years.

Since Obama took office, the number of people eligible to work in the labor force has risen by nearly 12 million.

But the actual number of new people working in the labor force since Obama assumed the presidency? A ridiculous one million.

Note the column I've highlighted above. November's labor force participation rate is the lowest in a generation for that particular month.

The employment situation has not been this grim since -- wait for it -- Jimmy Carter was president.

Ah, these Democrats. They're for the little people, don'tcha know?

Hey: I've got an idea! Let's force businesses to pay a higher minimum wage! That ought to help!


Hat tip: BadBlue News.