Michelle Obama’s economic recovery is not quite as huge as rumored.
The Senate Budget Committee released the chart above.
“The numbers represented in the chart are a measure of growth from January 2009 through September 2012,” the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee explains. “The data is sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey, a sample of 60,000 households conducted by personal and telephone interviews. Basic labor force data are gathered monthly. The labor force consists of all people aged 16 and over either employed or actively seeking work. It does not include discouraged workers, people who have retired, or those on welfare or disability who are no longer looking for work. The ‘not in the labor force’ group is defined as the total civilian non-institutional population minus the labor force.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics does need a way to measure and report the number of people who have left the labor market because of job prospect discouragement. As things stand now, leaving the labor market without finding a job brings the overall unemployment rate down. That doesn’t make sense.
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