The Jobless Recovery

So here we are at Labor Day and there's been an uptick in employment. Which is good.

Yes, I know that the unemployment rate ticked upwards from 9.5 to 9.6 percent, but that's normal in the early part of a recovery as people who have given up looking for work return to the labor force. You have to be "looking" to be counted in the labor force.

Actual employment went up.

According to the Labor Department Household Survey civilian employment went up from 138.96 million 139.25 million. That's a tad under 300,000.

But these charts tell you the real problem. Here's the civilian labor force since 2006.

And here's the civilian employment.

I reckon that's what you call a jobless recovery. Of course Democrats were all over President Bush back in the mid 2000s when unemployment was 6 percent. So I suppose turnabout is fair play.

But the charts do show what a dog's breakfast President Obama has made over economic policy. We don't need ObamaCare. We don't need stimulus programs to save the jobs of teachers. We don't need higher energy prices. We need lower taxes on business so that business owners can have the confidence to grow and hire more workers. We need to get that number of the employed from just under 140 million and crank it up to 145 million. Pronto.

Any ideas, Mr. President?