• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, December 2, 2011

The economy got what would seem to be a bit of good news this morning, with the announcement that the Labor Deparmetn's announcement that the U.S. unemployment rate fell 0.4% from 9.0% to 8.6%.  However, the actual number of jobs added, 120,000, remains below what would be needed to actually register economic growth and growing employment: most economists say the economy would have to add about 250,000 jobs per month for a real recovery in employment to occur. Instead, it seems a large part of the drop in the unemployment rate was due to out-of-work individuals giving up on finding jobs and withdrawing from the workforce altogether, suggesting real recovery will take quite a bit longer.