John Lott's analysis supports my own

You may recall my post about 12.5 million new takers on the books.  Here's a similar post by John Lott.

John Lott's Website: The Illusionary Drop in Unemployment, how the drop in unemployment is due to people leaving the work force, not them getting jobs

Update:

Some simple addition - add the unemployed to the working aged adults not in the labor force and you have about 102 million. Add to those the total local, state, and federal civilian employees and you get 122.78 million adults not working, or working in government (takers).  Add in uniformed military personnel and you get 124.28 million.  Finally subtract these government employees from the 144.386 million working adults and you get 122.29 million working in the private sector (producers). In other words, our nation has a ratio of 122.29 million producers to 124.28 million takers. Add in children, and every person working is supporting 2.57 people including himself/herself.

 

This reminds me of the astute comment by Frédéric Bastiat :

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.