Job growth stumbled in August. While economists had been expecting 225,000 new jobs, there were only 142,000, the first time the jobs number was below 200,000 since January, in the middle of a terrible winter. The unemployment rate dropped a notch to 6.1 percent, but so did the participation rate, to 62.8 percent, tying its lowest rate since the 1970s. In August 2013, the unemployment rate was 7.2 percent and the participation rate was 63.2 percent. In other words, much of the improvement in the unemployment rate comes not from more jobs but from fewer workers.

Those unemployed for more than 27 weeks dipped by 192,000, but is still very high at 2,963,000, 31.2 percent of all unemployed. Those working part time when they would prefer full time dropped by 234,000 to 7,277,000. If the under-employed are added to the unemployed, the broader unemployment rate is 12 percent, down from 12.2 percent last month.

So the Obama recovery continues at its dawdling pace, like a reluctant child on his way to school, still showing no signs whatsoever of Alan Greenspan’s dreaded “irrational exuberance.”