THE MSM WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE ALL IS WELL SINCE UNEMPLOYMENT HAS DROPPED ALL THE WAY DOWN TO 5.8%–CONSIDER 9 MILLION OF YOU ARE STILL OUT OF WORK–SO NUMBERS AND STATS DON’T MEAN A THING WHEN YOU AIN’T GONE THAT WORK–SINCE UNDERNEATH ALL THE SUGAR COATING BY THE LIBERALS AND THE DEMOCRATS THE JOB THING HAS ROTTED TO THE CORE WITH DEMOCRAT POLICIES OF THE LAST 6 YEARS WITH OVER BURDENING REGULATIONS AND TAXES

The unemployment rate no longer seems to reflect America’s mood.

Perhaps it’s because the people who do have jobs aren’t getting raises — and more than one-third of Americans aren’t even trying to find a job.

Friday’s strong jobs report showed that the jobless rate — the most closely watched gauge of the economy’s health — is down to 5.8 percent. A year ago, the rate was 7.2 percent. Five years ago, it was 10 percent.

A now hiring sign is posted in window of an O’ Reilly auto parts store on November 7, 2014 in San Rafael, California. According to a U.S. labor department report, employers added 214,000 jobs in October, lowering the national unemployment rate to 5.8 percent. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

It’s the kind of sustained decline that would normally suggest a satisfied public.

Not so much anymore. After Tuesday’s midterm elections, exit polling showed how little falling unemployment has resonated. Most voters said they cast their ballots out of fear for the economy, stripping the Democrats from the Senate majority and implicitly rejecting President Barack Obama.

Many Americans don’t feel they’ve benefited from falling unemployment any more than they have from a sustained rise in the stock market or from solid U.S. economic growth.

Some hints of their discontent can be found within an otherwise glowing jobs report for October: Wages that are barely growing and a stubbornly low proportion of adults who either have a job or are looking for one.

“Underneath the surface, things are not good,” said Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute. “Both Democrats and Republicans would be making a mistake if they looked at the unemployment numbers and didn’t understand why voters are angry.”

There’s some evidence that the economy is better.

Home values have recovered from their recession-induced lows, according to real estate groups. Government figures show that fewer and fewer workers are being laid-off. Consumers punched the accelerator on auto sales this year. And the stock market, after troubling October downturn, has kept up its stampede to record highs.

But the jobs report contains clues to why many voters shrugged off those positive trends.

Consider wages. Workers’ pay usually outpaces inflation once the unemployment rate dips beneath 6 percent. That’s because when fewer people need to look for jobs, employers must raise pay to attract the most desirable among them.

Even with 5.8 percent unemployment and even though more than five years have passed since the Great Recession officially ended, this phenomenon has yet to take hold. Most workers’ pay is barely keeping up with historically low inflation.

“People aren’t looking at the statistical aggregates,” said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “They care about their standard of living, and most Americans think their standard of living has declined.”

Look, too, at the percentage of adults either working or searching for work. It’s a measure called labor force participation. The government counts people without jobs as unemployed only if they’re seeking work. If more people stop looking, labor force participation falls.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/11/08/two-main-reasons-americans-dont-think-the-economy-is-healthy-even-though-the-government-says-its-getting-better/