Jobless, laborless 'recovery' rolls on

So, many of the morning headlines among the MSM read 'Unemployment Rate Down to 6.7%'. Don't celebrate...reality couldn't be further from the truth...

WaPo: Groan. Ugh. Sigh.

Select your own preferred annoyed grunt in response to the December employment report, which in one instant made a lot of the progress the U.S. economy has been showing the last few months look more questionable. The nation added only 74,000 jobs in December, the weakest showing since the start of 2011, and far below the 205,000 monthly average of the three preceding months.

The unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent, which is the lowest since October 2008. But this apparent good news has a dark lining -- 347,000 people dropped out of the labor force (that is, are no longer looking for work) while only 143,000 additional people reported having a job. Interestingly, a broader measure of unemployment that also captures people who have given up looking for a job out of frustration didn'tdidn’t budge, remaining at 13.1 percent.

ZeroHedge gives us the skinny on this jobless, laborless so-called recovery...

Curious why despite the huge miss in payrolls the unemployment rate tumbled from 7.0% to 6.7%? The reason is because in December the civilian labor force did what it usually does in the New Normal: it dropped from 155.3 million to 154.9 million, which means the labor participation rate just dropped to a fresh 35 year low, hitting levels not seen since 1978, at 62.8% down from 63.0%.

And the piece de resistance: Americans not in the labor force exploded higher by 535,000 to a new all time high 91.8 million.

The jobless, laborless recovery continues to steam on.