Weak January jobs report shows why Obama doesn’t want to talk about jobs anymore

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/02/january-jobs-report-shows-why-obama-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-jobs-anymore/

James Pethokoukis | February 1, 2013, 10:25 am

"But two broader measure of labor market health — the employment-population ratio and the labor force participation rate — remain stuck at anemic levels. Indeed, if labor force participation were the same as when Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 10.8%. As it is, the U-6 unemployment rate — which includes a) part-timers who want full-time work and b) the discouraged who want a job but haven’t searched for work in the prior month because they believe no jobs are available — remained at 14.4% for the third straight month.

When might the economy return to the sort of unemployment rate we saw before the Great Recession, say, 4.5% or so? Let’s assume a) labor force participation regains half the ground it’s lost over the past four years, and b) job growth keeps turning in 2012-like performances. According to the Atlanta Fed’s jobs calculator, it would take another eight years to get back to the unemployment nadir of the George W. Bush administration. And that’s assuming, we don’t suffer another recession between now and then."