"The issue is jobs created and lost compared to normal. You can't fairly compare unemployment rates starting at different baselines. Welfare reform had a hell of a lot of impact on that baseline."

Ok. I guess I agree. You could say the addition woman into the workforce [in greater numbers] would affect this. And obviously there are economic cycles to consider. One also have to consider that though the tech boom in short term employed more people, it also introduce "change" into the workforce. Google going from nothing into million dollar company, that may increase productive but there will be some losers also [somewhere in there]. And of course fairly recently there were so many shocks to the system, you might think more economic hardship as a result.
But in any case I don't think you can say that general unemployment is really a problem. There are area in the country which have higher unemployment and these areas should be addressed by Federal and local govt.