The employment report came out for August and it showed the unemployment rate dropping from 8.1% to 7.8%. That should be good news to the president after he fared badly in the first presidential debate against Mitt Romney earlier this week.
It was said today that the drop in the unemployment was due not to people dropping out of the labor force but to real gains in jobs. That may be the case; I’m not sure.
But, it doesn’t erase the fact that the actual unemployment rate is more like 10% if you include those who have quit looking for work. You can see the documentation for that in the newsletter.
When the employment rate (the percentage of Americans working) is going down while the unemployment is also going down, something is wrong. What is wrong is that a big group of unemployeds is not being counting in the unemployment rate.