With some limited job creation in the United States in recent months, there has been speculation that our nation may finally be moving toward a real economic recovery.
We should all hope that's so, because many Americans are in desperate financial circumstances.
But one little-noticed fact about the jobs that have been created across the country lately is that they generally offer low pay.
There was not very much job growth in 2011, but even the positions that were created were "concentrated in industries that tend to pay low wages and skimpy benefits," The Associated Press noted. Those include industries such as retail and hospitality.
Of course, the Obama administration is downplaying the fact that it may be difficult to support a family on the wages that are paid at many of the newly created jobs. And to be sure, almost any job is better than no job.
But Americans who are unemployed, and those who can now find only lower-paying jobs than they had before they were laid off in the recession, have good cause to question whether our country is truly in a "recovery."