Reply #1: And here's the bad news a few paragraphs down... [View All]

[rfranklin]

Just 64.2 percent of adults are either in the work force, or looking for a job; that’s the lowest labor participation rate in a quarter century.

Many Americans had given up on finding work in this most terrible of economies, and survive on a spouse’s salary or savings. And they wait and hope for an upturn. “The unemployment rate may go up, but the bad news will be the good news,” Ms. Shierholz said. “It will mean people feel better about getting back into the economy.”

The larger question is what the medium-term future augurs. Will the job force continue to expand through the spring, and perhaps start to add jobs with enough vigor — 300,000 a month, say — to substantially reduce the unemployment rate? As Ms. Shierholz notes, if the economy adds 200,000 jobs a month, it will be 2019 before it reaches the same employment rate as before the Great Recession started. (Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has shed more than seven million jobs).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/business/economy/02jobs.html?_r=2&hp