  With the economy chugging along and solid job growth (over a quarter million last month) now sustained for almost 6 months, the Dems are still trying to convince people that we are step away from breadlines and double-digit unemployment. The main tactic that Kerry and others are using is the "yes, there is job growth; but all of the jobs pay 2 dollars a day and involve manually masturbating grizzly bears, so who'd want them" argument. Illinois Senate hopeful Barack Obama is the only the latest to use this line of assertion, claiming that the jobs that are be created are poorly paid and generally not what people want. We'll leave the latter part alone - I can't comment on whether an unemployed person would rather not work than work; I know in my life I've had some pretty shitty jobs (like cleaning toilets for 6 bucks an hour) but I'd rather have a steady income not dependent on Uncle Sugar than not. I can say, however, that the former is wrong. Average income is up over the last 3 months and most of the jobs created are in the manufacturing sector or in the professional service sector (banking, real estate, IT, etc). Of course, many have also been added to what I would assume the Dems are talking about - retail and food services. However, the assumption that these are all minimum wage jobs or that none have benefits is ludicrous. During my stint in food services, I made well above minimum wage (although I did not have benefits).
My point is not that every new job created is wonderful. Nor is it that there are people out there making less than they used to or with worse or no benefits. My point is that the numbers do not support the Democrat's contention that the "jobless" recovery, while no longer jobless, still isn't good enough, because every job created doesn't involve either making 6 figures on an internet start-up that winds up producing nothing or stitching together sneakers on an union run assembly line like our grandparents did (okay, my grandfather actually worked in a union run auto plant and my grandmother - horror of horrors - ran the household).
Manufacturing has been in a long decline and some of the tech bubble of the late 90s was just unsustainable. Some jobs created, whether during an economic recovery or in the midst of a period of sustained economic growth, are worse than others. But this recovery and the jobs created during the first of the year are broad-based enough and in the main in sectors that allow for a decent living to be made, to not warrant the doom and gloom of the Democrats.
Perhaps if they had a platform other than "We're not Bush" they could address some of the actual economic issues we face (long-term ones like the changing structure of the economy, the increase in life-spans and productive age, increasing costs from mandatory social programs, etc). Instead, they only offer fear and loathing. 
