Obama's Unemployment Problem

Of all the headwinds the Obama administration is facing in this election, this is probably the toughest: Unemployment has only fallen because fewer Americans are looking for work, not because more Americans are finding jobs. --

Source: Heritage Foundation calculations from U.S. Dept of Labor

Not Looking for Work: Why Labor Force Participation Has Fallen During the Recession: "Lower Participation = Lower Unemployment Rate. As high as the unemployment numbers are, they still overstate the economy’s performance. Since the recession began, the labor force participation rate—the proportion of adults either working or trying to find work—has fallen by approximately 2 percentage points. The government counts only people actively looking for jobs as unemployed. The drop in labor force participation accounts for the entire net drop in the unemployment rate over the past three years."

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