The Labor Department today reported that private sector employment was lower than economists had forecasted, and while the unemployment rate declined to 9.5 percent, it did so only because more people stopped looking for work and thus were no longer included in the calculation.

All told, the economy shed 125,000 jobs in June, though those losses include 225,000 lost temporary Census jobs. The private sector did gain 83,000 jobs, but those gains were lower than expected.

The civilian participation rate dropped .3 percent to 64.7 percent and 652,000 people gave up looking for work. Those people are not included in the unemployment rate.

The bottom line is that this is the second consecutive weak employment report at a time when the economy was supposed to be rebounding. This will bolster the case of those who believe we’ll either have a really slow economic recovery, or even a double dip recession.

Politically, it’s more bad news for Democrats. And keep in mind that there are only three more unemployment reports between now and the mid-term elections, so time is running out for them to show results.