Unemployment Drops To 6.6% - Lowest Since Oct 2008 (unemployment rate, minimum wage, statistics)
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And more people began looking for work in January, a sign that they were optimistic about finding jobs. Many of these people found work, thereby reducing the unemployment rate to 6.6 percent from 6.7 percent in December. That’s the lowest rate since October 2008.
There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics.
How do you reconcile the fact that the employment participation rate is at a 35 year low and the number of people of people not in the labor force soared to a record high of 91.8 million?
Oh goodie, this again. Let's check the real unemployment rate (aka the Labor Force Participation Rate) and see what's really going on.
Well ... we might have finally bottomed out. Far too early to say, but maybe the LFPR has finally stopped dropping like a rock like it's been doing ever since President Obama took office. I'm still skeptical of course. We've seen brief rebounds since 2009 and all have given way to a steady trend of LFPR dropping like a rock tossed out of an airplane.
No the actual number of unemployed work-aged Americans has not decreased. It's nowhere close to where it was even during the worst of George W's presidency. I certainly wish that I was wrong. I honestly hope to see the day where somebody posts one of these and I check the actual numbers and see actual sustained improvement.
By the way, if you believe in the Unemployment Rate as a real measure of how much of America is unemployed, you'll love this recipe:
It doesn't feel like it, considering alot of people consider 4%-5% to be the standard normal in good times.
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