This is a chart from this past weekend’s Wall Street Journal:

There was good news and bad news for the American economy in the jobs report released last week.

One positive note:

One positive development is that the number of “long-time” unemployed, those out of work for six months or more, fell again and is down by one million workers over the past year. The dismally low labor participation rate ticked up to 63.5% from 63.4% in May as 177,000 more Americans entered the workforce, though the rate is still below the 63.8% from last June. Average hourly wages climbed a welcome 10 cents and for the first time hit $24.

But there were a few negative notes:

…a big jump of 247,000 in the number of “discouraged workers,” those who have stopped looking for a job

…big jump in the number of Americans who want to work full time but could only find part-time work. That number leapt to 8.23 million, a 322,000 one-month increase. Total part-time employment rose by 432,000, more than double the total number of net new jobs.

…those who can’t find a full-time job for economic reasons—still totals more than 20 million Americans and the rate unexpectedly rose in June to 14.3% from 13.8%

The article in the Wall Street Journal concluded:

On Tuesday the Obama Treasury announced it is postponing this employer mandate until 2015, and perhaps this will encourage more full-time hiring. But thousands of businesses, especially in retail and fast-food, have already started to cap employment for many workers at 30 hours and they know their reprieve is only for a year. If President Obama really wants to spur hiring, he’d let Congress delay the employer mandate forever.

ObamaCare is bad for American business and bad for the healthcare Americans now have available. If Congress and President Obama truly cared about the health of Americans, they would scrap ObamaCare completely and rewrite it to allow free market forces to control the cost of healthcare.