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The Obama administration's summer of recovery has crashed into an economic reality casting a cloud over the festivities of the Labor Day weekend: Too many Americans are doing little or no labor these days.

You can't make a persuasive argument for recovery when the unemployment rate is 9.5 percent and the under-employment rate, those who are unemployed or working part time but want full-time jobs, is at 18.6 percent, as reported by a Gallup survey.