Donald M. Payne: “The gentleman might remember there was supposed to be a .2 percent drop in the unemployment rate, and the administration…”

“The gentleman might remember there was supposed to be a .2 percent drop in the unemployment rate, and the administration said, see, we are doing the right thing. However, it was because tens of thousands of persons seeking employment simply decided to drop out of the market of seeking employment. Some decided to go back to school; others just disappeared. So the actual unemployment rate, even though they said it dropped two-tenths of 1 percent, this month there are more people unemployed than previously unemployed; but if you do not seek a job, you are not counted. It is a flawed kind of statistic that says that unemployment is dropping. It is not dropping. It is a shame that we are even having this so-called jobless recovery. What does a jobless recovery mean? It simply means in the pockets of the corporations, because of the sending jobs offshore, they claim productivity is up. That is because when you pick up your phone to call a 1-800 number, it is picked up in Bombay or offshore. Doctors, I understand, when they do an EKG, it goes up and someone in an English-speaking developing country who is a trained physician looks at it and sends back what the diagnosis should be; therefore, the cost of a physician in our country is undercut. We saw the offshore development of textiles and toys and things, but now we are seeing high-level jobs also going offshore, and nobody is talking about that.”