THE SEAN HANNITY SHOW

Record Number Leave Labor Force Our economy added jobs in September and the unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level since 2008.  But that doesn't tell the full story of what's happening in the Obama economy/recovery. Recent Fox News polling shows that just 24% of Americans feel as though their family is better off than they were in 2008.  The country is split on whether or not things are getting better or worse. On the surface the latest jobs report should indicate that America's economy is doing well.  Newly released jobs figures from September show that 248,000 jobs were created last month and the unemployment rate fell to 5.9%, which is the lowest level since the summer of 2008. But that doesn't tell us the whole story of what's really happening in the Obama economy/recovery.  The sad reality is that millions of Americans have simply dropped out of the labor force.  Americans have given up looking for work, which brings our labor force participation rate down to just 62.7%.  That is the lowest rate we've seen in 36 years, since 1978.  A record high  92,584,000 million Americans are not in the labor force. According to James Pethokoukis, “If labor force participation rate had stayed steady since Sept. 2013, the jobless rate would be 6.6%.”  It would be even higher if compared to the labor force participation of 65.7% when Obama became president in January 2009. Beyond the labor force participation rate, wage earnings actually fell by one cent last month.  The number of long-term unemployed and part-time unemployed Americans remained steady.  And the U-6 unemployment rate, which measures discouraged workers and those working part-time but seeking full-time employment, is at 11.8%.  While that number has come down, it is still a more accurate reflection of what is really happening. In other words, things are not really improving for Americans. But that hasn't stopped Barack Obama and his team from trying to turn our attention back to the economy and claim credit for, what they believe to be, its improvement.  Just recently Obama claimed that “by every measure, the country is better off than when he took office.”  Unfortunately we can add that to the list of lies Obama is telling the American people.  It's simply not the case and the American people know it.  Runaway Government Spending The government never seems to run out of ways to waste our hard-earned tax dollars. Here are some recent examples of outrageous spending by our federal government: The National Science Foundation wasted $300,000 studying how “humans interact with bicycles.” The federal government is spending $91,000 to conduct a “Bat Population Survey” in Northern Virginia. The U.S. Department of Labor awarded a $500,000 grant to help three states study paid leave for employees. An audit of the U.S. Department of Transportation found that employees misused their government-issued credit cards to the tune of $2.1 million in 2012 getting cash advances at places like casinos and race tracks. And that same Department of Transportation has handed out $4.2 billion in unjustified stimulus grants since 2009. Unbelievable.