While many people grew excited by the apparent strength of the June jobs report, things don't look so good beneath the surface, says Mort Zuckerman, chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report.
President Obama crowed that private-sector payrolls have increased six months in a row. But "what he failed to mention is that only 47.7 percent of adults in the U.S. are working full time,"
Zuckerman writes in The Wall Street Journal.
The unemployment rate dropped to an almost-six-year low of 6.1 percent. "But that's worth barely a Bronx cheer," Zuckerman argues.
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"It reflects the bleak fact that 2.4 million Americans have become discouraged and dropped out of the workforce. You might as well say that the unemployment rate would be zero if everyone quit looking for work."
The biggest factor behind the weak jobs picture is the economy's "feeble" growth rate — 1.9 percent — during the recovery, he notes.
Obamacare plays a role too. "Many employers cut workers' hours to avoid the Affordable Care Act's mandate to provide health insurance to anyone working 30 hours a week or more," Zuckerman explains.
"We are not in the middle of a recovery. We are in the middle of a muddle-through, and there's no point in pretending that the sky is blue when so many millions can attest to dark clouds."
Zuckerman isn't the only one who questioned the strength of the June jobs numbers.
CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, a Moneynews insider, is another.
"The 288,000 [gain in non-farm payrolls] is good," Kudlow notes. "On the other hand the labor participation rate is flat." That rate stood at 62.8 percent last month, tied for the lowest level in 36 years.
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