From today's L.A. Times: "Jobless Count Skips Millions."

I'm one of those millions skipped over in Team Bush's overly-rosy picture of an allegedly dropping unemployment rate. I gnash my teeth every time I hear a Bush apologist talk about how much employment has improved because I think of myself and a lot of other people I know who have either dropped out of the job hunt (because you can really only handle being kicked in the gut so many times) either to go back to school or try and start their own business. Or they've dropped off of the unemployment rolls because of being out of work for so long, the compensation ran out. Or they have taken part-time, very low-wage "survival" jobs. Now, I defy you to "survive" in the Bay Area on a part-time job at $7 or $8/hr. Lessee, do I wanna pay the rent? Or do I wanna have heat and a working phone? Or do I wanna feed the cats? If I beg enough and get to work overtime, maybe *I* can eat too!

And Team Bush's answer seems to be giving more and more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and corporations because they're supposed to invest this tax savings and stimulate the economy. Well, they've had, what three rounds of cuts now, yes? When, I wonder, will they actually start investing that money...and I don't mean investing it in offshoring more jobs to India or Russia or China or wherever they can find people desperate enough to work for pennies a day.

We're unemployed, George. We're not stupid, we're not bad people, we're not bad workers. We are, incidentally, voters.