Romney: Real Unemployment Rate 11%

Mitt Romney at a campaign event in Virginia today: “The unemployment rate, as you know, this year has come down very, very slowly — but it’s come down nonetheless. The reason it’s come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have just stopped looking for work. And if you just drop out of the work force, if you just give up and say, ‘Look, I can’t go back to work I’m going to stay home.’ If you just drop out altogether, why, you’re no longer part of the unemployment statistics. So it looks like unemployment is getting better. But the truth is, if the same share of people were participating in the workforce today as on the day the President got elected, why, our unemployment rate would be around 11%. That’s the real reality of what’s happening out there. And then, of course, even those that have jobs are having tough times. … I’ll tell you this, when I’m President of the United States, WHEN I’m President [pause] … that unemployment rate is gonna come down not because people are giving up and dropping out of the workforce, but because we’re creating more jobs.”