Bill's Blogabout: Leno: Obama's 'Encouraging More Americans to Give Up Looking for Work' to Bring Down Unemployment

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Leno: Obama's 'Encouraging More Americans to Give Up Looking for Work' to Bring Down Unemployment

By Noel Sheppard | September 18, 2012 | 10:58

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NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno made a joke Monday about President Obama and the economy that would be funny if it didn't hit so close to home.

Talking about how the unemployment rate only fell last month because of the number of people that dropped out of the labor force, Leno quipped that the President is "encouraging more Americans to give up looking for work so the numbers will come down a little bit" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

JAY LENO: Well, according to the Labor Department, unemployment fell from 8.3 to 8.1 percent last month. But that was because only, that's because, rather, 368,000 Americans gave up looking for work. And today, President Obama said that's a step in the right direction, and he is encouraging more Americans to give up looking for work so the numbers will come down a little bit.

In reality, most of the drop in the unemployment rate since its 2009 peak is due to a decline in the labor force.

In fact, according to Zero Hedge, the real unemployment rate is currently 11.7 percent.

As such, if the media did a better job reporting the truth about the jobs numbers, one quite imagines Obama wouldn't be doing nearly as well in the polls.