How bad were the jobs numbers announced yesterday?  As the Wall Street Journal blog remarked, “The 0 number of jobs added is a rare phenomenon. After revisions it has only happened once — in February 1945 — since 1939 when the Labor Department began compiling data.”  

Twice in 72 years is how often it has happened.  

A Wall Street Journal editorial captured it well:  “the $15 trillion U.S. economy created not a single net new job for the month. Zero….The Labor Department also revised jobs down for June and July by 58,000, and the employment to population ratio of 58.2% continues to be disturbingly low. The hardship that this represents doesn’t show up in the cold statistics, but they are depressing enough. The black teen jobless rate jumped to 46.5% from 39.2%. The increase of 400,000 in ‘involuntary part-time workers,’ or those who would work full time if they could find a job, is the biggest since 2009. Wages and hours worked both ticked down, bad signs for turning a recovery into any kind of decent expansion….”  

Hard to overstate the jobs crisis that is eating away at the American psyche while ruining the economy and the lives of untold Americans.