The unemployment rate remains at 8.8%. While that might seem like a vast improvement over the peak of 10.1% in October 2009, economists attribute much of the decline to the unemployed simply giving up -- not getting jobs.
According to Labor Department statistics, the American population grew by 2 million over the last year, yet the size of the workforce dropped by 500,000.
And at least 6.1 million people have been unemployed for more than 6 months -- a point that Bernanke repeatedly has stressed as a major challenge to the economy, and the Fed, going forward.
