Before departing for the cozy confines of Berkeley and the job of teaching economics rather than making economic policy (what’s that old expression about “teaching” and “doing”?), Christina Romer, the outgoing chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, had these thoughts to share on this morning’s labor report:

Against the backdrop of some unsettling economic data in the past few weeks, today’s numbers are reassuring that growth and recovery are continuing. At the same time, the fact that the growth of private-sector payrolls is below the level needed to keep up with normal growth of the labor force is obviously unacceptable. There are a number of steps we could take to help increase private sector job growth and put the economy on a path of steadily declining unemployment. We will be working with Congress on these measures in the coming weeks.

It’s not likely that this sort of “reassurance” is going to pass muster with voters in a couple months when they go to the polls and the fact that the President’s top economic advisers are exiting stage left just when it looks as though things are about to take a turn for the worse only adds to the growing concern that Americans will soon be able to express.