If you think 9.2% unemployment is bad, just wait - it gets worse

Look at something called the labor-force participation rate, which is the share of the population in the jobs market. The new employment report shows that this measure fell last month to 64.1 percent - the lowest level since 1984 when women were just entering the work force in significant numbers. From Real Time Economics:

The participation rate peaked in 2000 and has been steadily declining since as the effect of women taking full-time jobs plateaued and Baby Boomers began to retire, but the decline accelerated sharply during the recession. The participation rate was 66% at the start of the recession and 65.7% when the recovery started in June 2009. If the participation rate were still at that level, the unemployment rate would be more than 11% right now.

Nearly a third of the unemployed have been out of work for at least a year. Many of these folks will simply give up, and even the ones who won't will have a tougher and tougher time finding a job. They are destined to become economic outcasts, one of the little-told stories of the recession.