Languishing Labor

While 661,000 jobs were created in September, that’s way down from 4.8 million in June, 1.7 million in July, and even 1.5 million in August. The trend is troubling. We’ve only made up 51.5% of lost jobs, leaving us 10.7 million jobs below the 2/20 level. The unemployment rate fell to 7.9% from 8.4% but largely because the labor force participation rate fell from August’s 61.7% to 61.4%. Hello Congress?