President Obama last week brandished new jobs numbers as proof that his policies were having an effect on the unemployment rate, which the report said declined to 8.3 percent in January. 

The president is right about one thing: his big government agenda and class warfare tactics are having an effect--but it's not the one he claims. In truth, last month's drop in the unemployment statistic was due largely to the evaporation of 1.2 million people from the labor force number. When people become so discouraged they stop actively looking for work, they are no longer counted as unemployed and the rate goes down even though Americans are hardly better off than they were before.

The rate went down in January because (apparently) 1.2 million people decided in a single month not to pursue work. This is the number, in effect, that President Obama is touting.