Drop in U.S. Unemployment Rates

From November 2010 to December 2010, unemployment rates in the United States dropped from 9.8% to 9.4%. Over 100,000 jobs were created, although that was fewer than the Labor Department had anticipated. The drop doesn't mean all is well, though. The decrease was helped along by the fact that well over 200,000 people stopped searching for jobs. If they stop searching, those people are not longer considered as unemployed. In addition, the number of people of working age grew by more than the number of jobs created in the United States. The number of U.S. adults has risen by 2 million over the past year, but the number of jobs in the U.S. has only risen by 1.1 million in the last year. There is still a significant way to go before unemployment rates reach the point considered to be typical (6%). The recovery process will be a slow one.

It is good that the unemployment rate is (very) slowly dropping; however, the actual rates probably aren't as good as they appear to be because of the number of Americans who have given up searching for work. Since the numbers aren't portraying process in the most accurate way, it may be giving citizens the false hope that the economic situation is improving greatly. At this point, people just need to be patient and hope for the best. All of the recovery processes take time and there is no hope in rushing them.