[BobSimons]

>>>Ask the media to report the U4 -U6 numbers The broadest measure of un- and under-employment, called U-6, fell to 15.9 percent from 16.1 percent in January, and is down from 17.0 percent in November.

well... Where is my job?

[NC28203]

>>>well... Where is my job?

Can't say. As noted by those numbers, there is still a significant ways to go wrt the labor market.

Despite the broad economic improvement, there is good reason to believe that the labor market will not be keeping pace. Rather than an aberration, high unemployment may be an enduring feature of the US economy. Retail sales have reached new highs and 4Q10 GDP set a new high for real output. The US economy was able to produce $13.38T of real output last quarter with only 139 million employees, compared to the more than 146 million Americans who were working in the 4Q07 to produce slightly less output.

The obvious but uncomfortable implication is that there had been many “zero marginal productivity jobs” on the books, propped up by the previous boom and the housing bubble. Their productivity may not be literally zero, but it is lower than the cost of training, employing, and insuring them. With firms recognizing many of these jobs as adding little economic value, it becomes difficult to imagine a quick fix.

But if you are unemployed I would think you would prefer to see improvement in the labor market as opposed to further deterioration.