If the work force continues shrinking at this pace, we’ll get the unemployment rate down to that 5 percent President Obama promised us before you know it.

If the work force continues shrinking at this pace, we’ll get the unemployment rate down to that 5 percent President Obama promised us before you know it.

Yes, the unemployment rate fell from 8.3 percent to 8.1; the decline due to a continued shrinking labor force rather than job creation. The number came in below expectations (which it should be noted, weren�??t hot to begin with) so spinning the report into something positive will be a difficult task. We’re not even keeping up with population growth.

Even Paul Krugman could only muster up enough strength to write a post titled, �??No News On Jobs.” Well for the 368,000 Americans who stopped looking for work there was plenty of news, I suppose. There are now 12 million Americans looking for work and another 7 million who want a job but aren�??t even looking.

Via James Pethokoukis at AEI: JPMorgan’s Michael Feroli writes that �??there has been essentially no progress in repairing the labor market after the recent downturn.�?�

It�??s unfair to blame Barack Obama for the recession (though he seems to have no problem blaming others), but it is fair to judge a president on his recovery (see above). Meanwhile, read this incredible press release from Hilda Solis. Her idea �?? the administration’s idea — of calming people is to send out a whole bunch of campaign platitudes with another horrible jobs report. Alan Krueger, chairman for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, write every month that it is �??important to not read too much into�?� a single monthly jobs report. How about 43 in a row?

Another consequence of this bad news is that we�??re probably another step close to seeing the Federal Reserve stepping in with a round of money printing. Last month, the Fed intimated that if we didn�??t see an acceleration of job growth it would act. The Fed, reports say, could start buying more government bonds from investors as early as next week.