The unemployment rate has just fallen one-tenth of a percent, from 9 percent to 8.9 percent. Of course, it is indeed progress, and it is being celebrated in the White House as such. But the celebrations bring to mind what a wit once said: An “acceptable” level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. Today, as we move into the third year of the Obama administration, we do not have anything resembling even such an “acceptable” level of unemployment. Far from it. As of this month, 14 million Americans can’t find work.
