How headlines mislead, inadvertently or deliberately.

http://tinyurl.com/yckk87u
Nov. jobless rate falls to 10 pct., 11K job cuts By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP
WASHINGTON – The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 10 percent in November as employers cut the smallest number of jobs since the recession began. The better-than-expected job figures are a rare note of encouraging news for the labor market.
... The economy shed 11,000 jobs last month, an improvement from October's revised total of 111,000, the Labor Department said Friday. That's much better than the 130,000 Wall Street economists expected. The unemployment rate fell to 10 percent from 10.2 percent in October, where economists expected it to remain....the so-called underemployment rate also fell, to 17.2 percent from 17.5 percent in October. ****So far this sounds all positive ( and will doubtless be spun that way by the administration.)A jarring arithmetic note is, "How can the unemployment RATE go down when jobs are still being lost?" Read further.****... The unemployment rate fell because the number of jobless Americans dropped by 325,000 to 15.4 million...The rate also dropped because fewer people are looking for work. The size of the labor force, which includes the employed and those actively searching for jobs, fell by nearly 100,000, the third straight decline. That indicates more of the unemployed are giving up on looking for work. The participation rate, or the percentage of the population employed or looking for work, fell to 65 percent, the lowest since the recession began. Once laid-off people stop hunting for jobs, they are no longer counted in the unemployment rate...****The headlines could just as justifiably been "Participation rate falls to lowest level since recession began." Does one wonder that the media spin is in favor of the Bidenesque pitch that "the stimulus is working"?****