Obama Recovery: Still 7.6 Million Jobs Below Average

Economy: Although somewhat better than expected, the 175,000 net jobs created in May continues the historically tepid jobs growth trend that has come to characterize the now four-year-old economic recovery.

The result has been continued high unemployment, a vast pool of long-term jobless, and an unprecedented number of people who've dropped out of the labor force.

Highlighting the weakness of the May report is the fact that the number of unemployed climbed by nearly the same amount as jobs created - 101,000 - nudging the unemployment rate up to 7.6%.

As a result, there are still 2.4 million fewer people working than there were in January 2008, the previous jobs peak. And since the recovery started in June 2009, the number of jobs has increased a mere 3.9%, well below the post-World War II average of 9.7%.

In fact, had this jobs recovery merely kept pace with the average of the previous 10, there would be 7.6 million more people working today, and the unemployment rate would be less than half its current level.

Democrats have tried to lay blame for weak job growth on the sequester's automatic spending cuts.

Democratic National Committee communications director Brad Woodhouse, for example, tweeted Friday: "175k jobs added is a solid number. Imagine what our economy would be doing if not for #GOPSequester, GOP refusal to make needed investments."

But the sequester is clearly not to blame.

First, the automatic spending cuts it imposed only started in March, and even then, the budget cuts actually enacted so far have been relatively minor.

Also, the total number of government jobs climbed more than 7,000 since January (not including U.S. Postal Service jobs, which get included in government statistics even though the USPS is independently run).

And overall job growth was far worse while the government was furiously spending the more than $830 billion in economic stimulus money than hiring since the stimulus funds ran out.

Other bad news hidden in the jobs report:

• The unemployment rate among the nation's youths climbed to 24.5% in May, up from 23.4% in January. It was around 16% before the recession started.

• The unemployment rate for blacks is now 13.5%. It was 9% when the recession started in December 2007.

• There are still 4.4 million people who have been unemployed 27 weeks or longer, and the average length of unemployment is 36.9 weeks - a figure that is still significantly higher than it was when the recovery started in June 2009.

• Despite a slight decline in May, there are still 8.8 million more people who are not in the labor force than when the recovery started four years ago.