The U.S. needs to add more than 150,000 jobs per month just to keep pace with population growth. So September’s number — 142,000 jobs — was not only below expectations but below what we need just to tread water. It also follows August’s terrible report of 136,000 jobs added (revised down from 173,000), making for the worst back-to-back numbers in three years. But in the last two years, just seven months have cracked 250,000 jobs created. It seems the only number going up these days is the number of Americans leaving the workforce entirely — another 350,000 gave up in September, and a record 94.61 million Americans are not working. The labor participation rate fell to 62.4%, the lowest since October 1977. When you read that the unemployment rate held steady at 5.1%, remember low participation is the biggest reason why.

And Barack Obama has 16 months remaining in office.