Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today on the unemployment numbers released today. Everything is not quite what we are told it is.

Mr. Morrissey reports that the numbers are slowly going down–we are now at 8.5 percent. There is, however, a bit more to the story.

The article points out:

The civilian population participation rate hasn’t changed at all from the 64.0% of last month, which remains the lowest level since the Reagan years and which keeps the jobless rate artificially low. The civilian labor force — all the employed and all those seeking employment — actually declined by 50,000 people since November.  However, the U-6 measure of “real” unemployment dropped from 15.6% in November to 15.2% in December, which is the lowest in three years.

The economy is improving very slowly. It would improve much more quickly if we began to remove some of the choking regulations from businesses and if we revised our tax code down to one or two pages that were easily understood by average Americans. Hopefully, this year’s elections will give us leadership that will do that.