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December has brought a small wave of positive news on the unemployment front--though much of it is better described as "less negative news." Lest we get carried away by dips in the unemployment rate and jobless claims, Economic Policy Institute economist Heidi Shierholz reminds us that the conditions are not ripe for a major shift. Shierholz points to the ratio of job seekers to available jobs, which remains above 4:1. Shierholz: To put this figure in context, it’s useful to note that the highest this ratio ever got in the early 2000s downturn was 2.8-to-1, and in December 2000, the month the JOLTS survey began, the ratio was 1.1-to-1. While the job-seekers ratio has been generally slowly improving since its peak of 6.9-to-1 in the summer of 2009, today’s data release marks two years and 10 months—147 weeks—that the ratio has been above 4-to-1. A job-seekers ratio of more than 4-to-1 means that for more than three out of four unemployed workers, there simply are no jobs. In October, there were 10.6 million more unemployed workers than job openings. Furthermore, the lack of job openings relative to unemployed workers is in no way limited to particular industries such as construction—unemployed workers dramatically outnumber job openings across the board, in every major industry. Read the full post here .

The Wall Street Journal's Neil King sets up unemployment as a leading issue in the 2010 midterm election, quoting Democratic pollster Peter Hart as saying "Anytime unemployment hits double digits, it's hard to see the party in control having a good election year." Unemployment is now nearing that double digit mark, hitting 9.8% in September. The Journal's interactive department put together this chart to illustrate the correlation between high unemployment and midterm voting: Click here to use the interactive chart. Read Jobless Rate Is Key to Fate of Democrats in 2010 , or watch Neil King discuss his report here . The Obama administration, for its part, is now pushing--again--a tax credit for companies designed to decrease unemployment. Catherine Rampall of the New York Times reports that the tax credit idea is gaining traction among both parties, and details are coming soon: One version of the approach, to be unveiled next week by the Economic Policy Institute , a labor-oriented research organization, would give employers a two-year tax credit if they increased the size of their work force or added significant hours of work (for example, making a part-time worker full time). Employers would receive a credit worth twice the first-year payroll tax for each new hire, amounting to several thousand dollars, depending on the new worker’s salary. “It’s beautiful if it can be timed at a dire moment like this, when unemployment is way too high and appears to be going somewhat higher,” said Mr. Phelps, an economics professor at Columbia, lamenting that the president dropped it from the $787 billion stimulus plan approved in February. “But it’s a pity that this wasn’t done a year ago.” One of a number of ideas being discussed, the policy is intended to encourage companies to start hiring again by making it cheaper to add new workers. It has raised concerns, though, that employers might try to exploit the system. Read Support Is Building for a Tax Credit to Help Hiring here.