In recent months the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been running a hustle by not counting increasing numbers of workers which results in the widely publicized unemployment rate U3 dropping. It provides fodder for the well-coiffed lapdogs in the Lamestream Media to sing the praises of emperor Obama, but the sad truth is something else - Real Jobless Rate Is 11.4% With Realistic Labor Force Participation Rate
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to grasp the fudging the BLS has been doing every month for years now in order to bring the unemployment rate lower: the BLS constantly lowers the labor force participation rate as more and more people "drop out" of the labor force for one reason or another.
[See the charts and details at the link]
It won't surprise anyone that as of December, the real implied unemployment rate was 11.4% (final chart) - basically where it has been ever since 2009 - and at 2.9% delta to reported, represents the widest divergence to reported data since the early 1980s. And because we know this will be the next question, extending this lunacy, America will officially have no unemployed, when the Labor Force Participation rate hits 58.5%, which should be just before the presidential election.
The Obama plan is to put more unemployed workers on welfare so they don't count as unemployed anymore. Makes sense to him at least.