A little jobs math from The Washington Post, as President Obama pivots to jobs (again!) and embarks on his Pivot to Jobs-themed Midwestern bus tour:
The White House and much of the chattering class cooed on Friday when unemployment dropped to 9.1 percent and 117,000 jobs were reportedly created in July. But these numbers, upon closer inspection, show no progress on the jobs front.
Buried in the job stats was a number—193,000—that dwarfed all the rest. That is the number of workers who left the job market. If 193,000 left and only 117,000 jobs were added, we lost 76,000 jobs. Moreover, this is not an aberration.
More Reason on the politico jobs obsession here. And hey, remember in 2009 when we put a big scary Obama face on our cover and said that the economy was not on the mend?
