Reynolds has a long rant about the employment numbers that completely misses the mark. The numbers have always failed to recognize the people dodging taxes by working as independent contractors under fake SS#s, AND the literal ton of people who work "off the books" for cash. Consider all the auto mechanics and body work guys who work out of their yards and homes---the construction guys who work days for cash per---the people who work the phones for cash commissions, and so on. Then there is the virtual army of "Dead Beat Dads" who also beat the system by working under someone else's SS# and you have an underground economy that is quite large. However, since the same source data has been used for years, the survey is an accurate measure of the rise and fall of employment. Many years ago I found myself on the street three months before Christmas when my entire business collapsed. I went to work selling glasses out of the back of my girl friend's station wagon and consistantly made $200 per day cash (limited to a five day week) til I found another job after Christmas. The tax free $200 was like $300, which was more than I was earning at a "real" job. There are still hundreds of ways to make money like that. And then there are prostitutes, porn actresses, and drug dealers which number in the millions and there is no employment survey on them.