Celebrate The Falling Unemployment Rate All You Want, But

"The decent, steady, but not great jobs recovery just got a little stronger. But there are still a disturbingly large number of people who aren’t feeling the benefits of the recovery.

The U.S. economy added 248,000 jobs in September, according to data released by the the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. The unemployment rate fell below 6 percent for the first time since July 2008, dropping to 5.9 percent from 6.1 percent.

Yet wages are still going nowhere: Average hourly earnings ticked up 2 percent this year compared to last year. But if you take inflation into account – it's running at 1.7 percent – wages actually stayed essentially flat.

This chart helps explain why. It shows the gap between the widely cited unemployment rate (called the U-3 rate) and a broader measure of joblessness and underemployment called the U-6 rate, which in September was 11.8 percent. Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said that in the current economy, the U-6 may be a better indication of the health of the job market than the headline unemployment rate."

More explanation in link from HuffPo.