December 2010 jobs report: Payrolls up, unemployment rates falls

December jobs report: Payrolls up, unemployment rates falls - Jan. 7, 2011:
"NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- High hopes for December's employment numbers were dashed Friday, when the Labor Department reported disappointing job gains for the month. But the unemployment rate took a surprising dive.

The economy added 103,000 jobs in December -- falling short of most expectations. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate sunk to 9.4%, its lowest level since May 2009, confusing some economists. While a sharply lower unemployment rate was a welcome surprise, some experts said that drop was mostly due to a shrinking workforce."

and

"About 260,000 adults dropped out of the labor force for various reasons, and were no longer counted as unemployed by the government. The overall participation rate in the U.S. labor force fell to a new recession low of 64.3%. "Incredibly, the U.S. labor force is now smaller than it was before the recession started, though it should have grown by over 4 million workers to keep up with working-age population growth over this period," said economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute."

The news just gets worse and worse. As small businesses collapse, with literally hundreds shutting down daily, the job market is rapidly shrinking. The last 2 years have taken a toll on the backbone of our economy, the small business, with the Federal, State and City Governments taxing or regulating most out of business in such a short time.

With a new Congress seated in D.C. to greet a New Year, one can only hope this new batch has a better understanding of what is wrong with our economy, and that taxing businesses out of business results in collection of NO tax once they shut down.