[Will88]

The second graph illustrates the problem with the reasoning, though. It shows that we’ve lost more than 28 million jobs. But the total unemployed in the US is only 12.5 million. These kinds of statistics can be misleading.

Not at all misleading. New jobs were created in some industries and some new industries started up during those years.

The 28 million is simply jobs lost as industries moved from the US to cheap labor nations. That 12.5 million unemployed figure is the net of many pluses and minuses in the total job picture.

[Brilliant]

That’s precisely why it IS misleading.