Brian Snyder / Reuters

"The unemployment rate as you noted this year has come down very, very slowly, but it’s come down none the less. The reason it’s come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have just stopped looking for work. And if you just dropped out of the work force, if you just give up and say look I can’t go back to work I’m just going to stay home, if you just drop out all together why you’re not longer part of the employment statistics so it looks like unemployment is getting better, but the truth is, if the same share of people were participating in the workforce today as on the day the president got elected, our unemployment rate would be around 11 percent."

—Abington, Va.