For one of the first times in President Obama’s presidency, the monthly unemployment rate dipped below 9 percent last month.
For the White House, which figures an unemployment rate in the 7 range is key for winning back the White House in 2012, this is a milestone.
So, right now one would have to say the trend is their friend. But how to get to unemployment back in the 7s, a respectable number perhaps, but far from any traditional measure of full employment?
Ah, there in lies the rub.
Just as any fifth-grader knows that his hits-at-bat go up when a bunch of boys have left the team, a large amount of the so-called “improvement” in our nation’s unemployment rate has come at the hands of the dropouts, the nearly 5 million US workers who just don’t show up in the job numbers anymore.
They’ve gone missing. The so-called “active workforce” now comes in at about 64 percent, stunningly low for this stage of a recovery.
At the same time the latest figures from February show no wage pressures whatsoever.
While the economy added a solid 192,000 jobs for the month, wages and the length of the average workweek remained flat.
To be sure, each of those new hires is happy to have a job, but at a time of $4 a gallon gasoline, one would think there would be some pressure on wages.
This is a bad omen for the economy and the Obama White House. While solid strides in employment were measured last month, the slack in terms of hours paid and wages increased show that it will be a very long time before we see anything that resembles the full employment of yesteryear.
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