Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Speaker, the unemployment rate last month dropped from 9.4 percent to 9 percent, but only 36,000 jobs were created. Wow, 36,000 jobs equals 0.4 percent.
How did the rate drop so much with only 36,000 new jobs? Madam Speaker, it's an illusion. If you are chronically unemployed and have given up looking for a job, you don't count as unemployed in America. You fall out of the statistics. So as more and more people are out of work for longer periods of time, they are literally left out of the system. Houdini couldn't have performed an illusion as clever as the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But shouldn't the government of, for, and by the people care about its most vulnerable in this economic climate?
I want to remind the government of the urgency of our economic situation. Send me your resume and your story to resumesforAmerica@mail.house.gov. I want to have your story entered into the Congressional Record to remind the Congress of the fierce urgency of ``now.''
Madam Speaker, stop the illusions. The American people need jobs, and they want to go to work. We have too many Americans who are chronically unemployed, and we don't even count them anymore. We need to do something about it, and we need to do something about it now.