About 290,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in April, and that is surely good news for the Americans who filled those jobs.
But what is not good news is that 66,000 of those jobs were only temporary federal government positions for census takers -- positions that add to our $12.9 trillion national debt.
What is also unwelcome news is that even with some job creation, the nation's unemployment rate grew from a dismal 9.7 percent to an even worse 9.9 percent.
The rate rose because some desperate Americans who had given up even trying to find jobs re-entered the job market in an attempt to get work but couldn't find it.
And the "official" unemployment rate itself hides another ugly reality: When you add to the "official" figure the millions of Americans who have given up trying to find jobs or who need full-time work but can find only part-time, the so-called "underemployment" rate is an alarming 17.1 percent.
Worse still, about 46 percent of Americans who were unemployed in April had been out of work six months or longer -- a record high. That long-term unemployment is causing serious economic suffering for them and their families.
Our nation's ugly employment picture is a big part of the reason why 76 percent of respondents to a recent Associated Press poll said our economy is still in bad shape -- even as the Obama administration tries to convince the country that his big-government, big-spending "recovery" efforts are working.
Sadly, high joblessness is only a sign of worse things to come for our economy once expensive ObamaCare socialized medicine is fully implemented, with its higher taxes and increased bureaucracy.