So, that jobs report was pretty bad, huh?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the December job numbers this morning, and boy, do they suck. The economy added about 74,000 jobs in December -- roughly half what it needs to do just to keep up with population growth, nevermind dent the unemployment rate -- and yet the unemployment rate fell from 7 percent to 6.7 percent. How can this be? Turns out the story is the same as it has been since 2009 -- the unemployment rate is falling only because people are giving up on finding a job, and the BLS doesn't count people as "unemployed" if they've quit looking.

In a post by Allahpundit at Hot Air, we get pointed to this article by Sean Davis over at The Federalist. Davis highlights how truly bad the jobs report is with a simple graph showing what the unemployment rate would be if the labor force participation rate were the same as it was in June 2009, when the last recession officially ended:

The only thing driving the drop in the unemployment rate is the historic low in workforce participation. People are still giving up on finding a job, years after the recession supposedly ended. You call that a recovery?