Unemployment Stats....As Of Spring/Summer 2012

If you don't believe the N.Y. Times (certainly not a “Right-Wing” Source) 
here it is straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:



http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm



The civilian labor force participation rate declined in April to 63.6 percent,

while the employment-population ratio, at 58.4 percent, changed little.



The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes 

referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged in

April at 7.9 million. These individuals were working part time because their

hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.



In April, 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force,

essentially unchanged from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally

adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were

available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months.

They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in

the 4 weeks preceding the survey. 



Among the marginally attached, there were 968,000 discouraged workers in April,

about the same as a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)

Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they

believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.4 million persons

marginally attached to the labor force in April had not searched for work

in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance

or family responsibilities.