Free Republic

Reporting from Sacramento— California's unemployment rate increased in July while job creation slowed to a crawl, fueling fears that the state's fragile recovery is faltering. The jobless rate last month ticked up to 12% from 11.8% in June, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department. California now has the second-highest rate of unemployment in the nation, trailing only Nevada at 12.9%, and its jobless rate is well above the U.S. average of 9.1%. The July hiring picture was bleak. California employers added just 4,500 new jobs last month, a steep drop from the revised 30,400 jobs...

America's jobless crisis is much worse than the 9.8 percent unemployment rate reported Friday. To understand how there are many more unemployed than the government reports, it's necessary to look at the numbers used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to calculate the unemployment rate. The Household Survey numbers paint a bleak picture that no one is discussing. In September, the economy saw a net loss of 785,000 jobs. This amounts to twice the 392,000 loss in August and five times the 155,000 loss in July. This does not jibe with the Obama administration's talking points, which are parroted by...