Employers added 200,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, the U.S. Labor Department recently reported. This is the "latest sign that the U.S. economy is solidly on the mend," media coverage informed us, and "Obama's odds may rise as unemployment falls."

During this election year, the monthly unemployment rate will become a rhetorical volleyball – batted high in the sky by politicians claiming that their economic policies are working or left unobtrusively on the ground if jobs fizzle.

But the unemployment rate, used alone, is a somewhat deceptive indicator of job creation. In fact, despite this glimmer of good news, current policies have resulted in the weakest economic recovery since World War II.

Today, 13.1 million Americans can't find jobs, far more than the 7.7 million in December 2007, the beginning of the 2008-09 recession that ended in June 2009. That's 5.6 million fewer people working today than four years ago, when the unemployment rate was 5 percent. California's rate has dipped slightly to 11.3 percent, but was 5.8 percent in 2007. Our state's rate is second highest in the nation, with 2 million Californians unemployed.

Yet many believe that even these numbers understate the true extent of unemployment. The problem with relying solely on the unemployment rate to judge job growth, especially in today's sluggish economy, is, first, that it is based only on those who sought work in the prior four weeks. It does not include discouraged workers who have stopped looking.

By way of analogy, if 100 people in a community of 1,000 workers searched for a job in the past four weeks and couldn't find one, the unemployment rate would be 10 percent. But if half the job seekers became discouraged after a year of searching and stopped looking during the prior four weeks, the unemployment rate would drop to 5 percent (with 50 of the 1,000 people termed "unemployed.") The other 50 staying home would not be counted.

Therefore, ironically, the unemployment rate can fall when people drop out of the labor force and can rise when people start looking for work again. The labor force participation rate, in fact, has shrunk from 66 percent in 2007 to 64 percent today – the equivalent of 4 million additional Americans who have currently given up trying to find a job – which contributed to the unemployment rate fall.

This phenomenon came to light during the Republican primary debates last fall when Texas Gov. Rick Perry touted his state's record job creation, and critics pointed to an increase in Texas's unemployment rate. But since many job seekers moved to Texas, including 50,000 Californians last year, the unemployment rate in Texas actually rose from 7.7 percent in June 2009 to 8.4 percent in July 2011 because more people were chasing available jobs. It has now fallen to 8.1 percent.

A more accurate reflection of unemployment, many believe, includes the 2.5 million people "marginally attached to the labor force," who want work and sought work in the prior 12 months but weren't counted because they hadn't looked in the prior four weeks; and 8.1 million Americans working part time because their hours had been cut or they couldn't find a full-time job. If these groups are included the unemployment rate is nearly double – 16.2 percent for the nation and 21.6 percent for California.

"This is still definitely a subpar recovery by historical terms," Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities told the Wall Street Journal.

Comparing 30 weeks into previous recoveries, the current 8.5 percent official unemployment rate is significantly higher than the 7.2 percent in 1982, 6.7 percent in 1991, and 5.6 percent in 2001, according to a WSJ analysis of Labor Department data. The number of long-term unemployed – those jobless for 27 weeks or more – stands at 5.6 million, or 42.5 percent of the unemployed – the worst since the Great Depression.

Yes, 3 million jobs have been created over the past two years, but neither California nor the nation is adding jobs at a pace fast enough to bring unemployment to normal levels. Gross domestic product must grow by more than its long-run average rate of 3 percent to reduce unemployment, according to economists, but its current growth is limping at 1.8 percent.

Economic policies based on "stimulus," skyrocketing debt, mountains of new regulations, class warfare, business bashing and constant threats of higher taxes on the productive from Washington and Sacramento have failed.

Under the surface of the economic sea glowing with the current pink hue of a lower unemployment rate, piranhas of job-punishing policies, unless changed, will continue to devour the hopes and dreams of jobs for millions of Americans.

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Margaret A. Bengs is a state employee and former political speechwriterwho lives in Carmichael. Reach her at peggybengs@hotmail.com.

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