Jobless rate eased but is worse than they say

It is not surprising that the Obama administration is trying to put a positive spin on the jobless rate. The recent report of a slightly lower jobless rate is only part of the story.

The Washington Post reports:

The stabilization in the economy is not rippling through to ordinary American workers. Economists generally expect the unemployment rate to resume its rise in the coming months, ultimately reaching or surpassing 10 percent.

The July decline in the jobless rate came about not because more people had jobs, but because 422,000 people removed themselves from the labor force, essentially giving up the search for work. The number of long-term unemployed people -- those who have been out of a job but looking for more than 26 weeks -- rose by another 584,000.

The unemployment rate does not include people who have given up searching for work in the unemployed totals.

Link here and here.