Mixed results on jobs
The good news is that the U.S. unemployment rate dropped significantly last month, from 10.0 percent to 9.7 percent. The bad news is that we still managed to lose another 20,000 jobs. How is that possible, you ask?
Answer: Previous surveys had missed a substantial number of people who had gone back to work. The suddenly lower unemployment rate is simply an updated snapshot of unemployment.
But behind the ostensibly improved jobless figures, there's also this: Without seasonal adjustments, the Labor of Bureau Statistics admits, the number of unemployed Americans jumped from 14.7 million in December to 16.1 million in January.
More sobering still is the phenomenon of the discouraged worker -- Americans who are no longer looking for employment and no longer on unemployment benefits. Statisticians call them "marginally attached," and January showed the largest month-to-month increase in these people since the Federal Reserve officially declared that we were indeed in a recession.
Are some unemployment signs truly positive? Yes. Is stimulus spending helping? Yes. But the bottom line is this: We're still taking on water, and we'll be bailing for quite some time.
