First time jobless claims are down to 366,000. What does it mean?

We have two choices when answering the question,  “What do these numbers mean?”

1.  Good news, that the economy is growing and is assuming  a healthy stance.
2.  Bad news, that people have just given up looking for work,  and, are no longer being counted.  Last month,  we know for certain that 312,000 were dropped from the unemployment count, and we know this because the Department of Labor told us so. 

There is a stat that plays a critical role in answering this question and it is the “U-6” report,  the counting of all who are unemployed,  underemployed and no longer looking for work but want work.  That number is around 20% and does not seem to be effected by all this recent “good news.”  Understand that “20%” pencils out to around 31 million people. 

Something else:  the work force has declined in total numbers.  I am saying that the work force is smaller than it was,  three years ago  -  down from 63% of the population to 58%.  Where did these people go?  Well,  the food stamp program has grown by 40% since Obama became the national CEO.  Maybe they are in that number.  For certain,  they did not go back to work nor did they move to Europe.