Ok, you're looking at Household data and I'm looking at CES data, now I see where you're coming from.
Right.
Looking at the Unemployment RATE, we are still above (5.4%) the rate in Jan'01, but that was on the way up due to the recession that started in March'00 when the dotcom bubble broke and stockmarket loss began, since it took about 18months for that to shake out --- and then Sep.11 took it up some more, and that took some time to shake out. Now, those influences have been countered by the tax cut, which will take, again, about 18 months for their effect.
The Number of unemployed has gone from 9mil down to 8mil this last year, and that will trend further down even if the economy slows a bit now - again, a residual effect of the 18 month lag time in the employment figures.
Regardless, already, there are more than two million (2,000,000 !!!) more WORKING in this country than ever before.
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