海角大神

Two years ago the unemployment rate was 9.9 percent. Now it鈥檚 8.5 percent. At first blush that鈥檚 good news for the President. Actually it may not be.

Voters pay more attention to the direction the economy is moving than to how bad or good it is. So if the positive trend continues in the months leading up to Election Day, Obama鈥檚 prospects of being reelected improve.

But if you consider the number of working-age Americans who have stopped looking for work over the past two years because they couldn鈥檛 find a job, and young people too discouraged even to start looking, you might worry.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which measures the unemployment rate every month, counts people as unemployed only if they鈥檙e looking for work. If they鈥檙e too discouraged even to enter the job market, they鈥檙e not counted.

If all the potential workers who have dropped out of the job market over the past two years were counted, today鈥檚 unemployment rate wouldn鈥檛 be 8.5 percent. It would be 9.5 percent. That鈥檚 only a bit down from the 9.9 percent unemployment rate two years ago.

The genuinely good news, though, is the Bureau of Labor Statistics also tells us 200,000 new jobs were added in December. Granted, this doesn鈥檛 put much of a dent in the 10 million jobs we鈥檝e either lost since the recession began or needed to keep up with the growth of the working-age population (at this rate we won鈥檛 return to our pre-recession level of employment until 2019) but, hey, it鈥檚 at least the right direction.

But here鈥檚 the political irony. This little bit of good news is likely to raise the hopes of the great army of the discouraged 鈥� many of whom will now start looking for work.

And what happens when they start looking? If they don鈥檛 find a job (and, let鈥檚 face it, the chances are still slim) they鈥檒l be counted as unemployed.

Which means the unemployment rate will very likely edge upward in coming months. This will be bad for the President because it will look as though the trend is in the wrong direction again.