Zero Hedge has a post up regarding the latest employment numbers. While they’re not good, they don’t seem that bad. Until you factor in the record number of Americans that have not found jobs and have run out of unemployment assistance. These Americans who are no longer in the labor force are not counted in unemployment numbers. In other words, the only reason the rate is as low as 8.2% is that an extraordinary number of Americans have given up looking for work altogether.
[Added:] James Pethokoukis tweets: “To sum up: Labor force shrinking, job growth slowing, real wages falling = The Great Stagantion”