At this point, even Ezra Klein is conceding that the “recovery” growth rate of 1.7 percent is a “horrific” new normal, so I can be accused of no partisan quest driving me to point out these depressing facts about our current economy, but a desire that we harness the good sense to abandon what’s not working and get the heck out of this mess. (Correction: This was Neil Irwin’s piece, a coblogger on Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog, who then tweeted the piece. Apologies for the mistake!)

1. Workforce participation: 2008-2013

2. Workforce participation 2008-2013, compared with 2000-2008:

Fed charts via @bdomenech, who writes a great morning newsletter, The Transom, which you can sign up for, here.

3. The surge of part-time employment:

4. “[O]f the 953K jobs “created” so far in 2013, only 23%, or 222K, were full-time.”

5. Repercussions.

Hadley Heath and Bloomberg economist Joe Brusuelas team up for this doozy:

bad news for dating. MT @joebrusuelas: the # of men 20 and older not in workforce has increased from 25 to 30 million since Nov. 2007.

— Hadley Heath Manning (@HadleyHeath) August 2, 2013