First, a flashback:
While the private sector isn't "doing fine" with 23 million people out of work, the government sector is doing much better.
The unemployment rate for government wage and salaries workers dropped from 5.7 percent in July to 5.1 percent in August. At the same time, the number of government wage and salary workers counted as unemployed dropped by 123,000 people from 1,182,000 in July to 1,059,000 in August.
The overall national unemployment rate was 8.1 percent in August.