9 ) The jobless rate in Massachusetts shrinks along with utility rates. Wait…good financial news? There must be some mistake.

8 ) After defaulting on a loan repayment to the state of Rhode Island, Curt Schilling asks the state for more money to keep his video game company afloat. Guess government bailouts aren’t so bad when you’re the one asking for them, huh, Curt?

7 ) Donna Summer dances her last dance and dies at age 63.

6 ) Tom Lynch, interim Barnstable town manager, could get the gig full-time, which would disqualify him from serving on the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates. That’s like telling Beyonce her solo career disqualifies her from ever singing with Destiny’s Child again.

5 ) A poll reveals that half of all Americans regard Facebook as “a fad.” One hundred percent of Americans then posted links to this poll on their Facebook pages.

4 ) Ron Paul announces he will cease active campaigning…perhaps in the hope it will prove a more successful strategy than his active campaigning.

3 ) Sasha Baron Cohen offends Arab-Americans with his new comedy The Dictator. Look on the bright side: at least he doesn’t wear a mankini and nude wrestle a fat guy.

2 ) Skechers settles its class action lawsuit over its ineffective gimmicky athletic shoes. It plans to cover its payout by asking for Kim Kardashian to repay all the money they gave her to promote something as fakey as she is.

1 ) Jennifer Lopez might leave American Idol, making yet another medium she had semi-conquered and abandoned. Next up: kubuki theater.

9 ) North Carolina takes another step back into the stone age by defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman in its constitution. Fun fact: first cousins can marry in North Carolina — but not double first cousins, meaning cousins born of two sets of siblings in two different families…because, you know, that’d be just gross.

8 ) The federal Secure Communities program will activate in Massachusetts next week, making it tougher for illegal immigrants to stay under the radar and easier for politicians to whip up anti-immigrant rhetoric.

7 ) The Legislature reverses course on a measure that would have banned school bake sales. Parents across the state secretly fume, because now they have no excuse to avoid cranking out eight dozen cupcakes by tomorrow to help out the Boosters Club.

6 ) The chairman of the state gaming commission resigns after old allegations of sexual abuse surface. Well, at least we know now he was familiar with one kind of vice.

5 ) The Parents Television Council (their motto: “If we can’t have fun, no one can!”) rails against the addition of Howard Stern to the judging panel of America’s Got Talent. Before a single episode has aired, which already makes them a worse judge than Howard.

4 ) The Avengers demolishes box office records, taking in $200 million in its first weekend. As a side-effect, it managed to boost the box office take for the floundering John Carter, which was paired with The Avengers in several double-bills. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes indeed.

3 ) Tim Burton “re-imagines” the cult classic soap Dark Shadows as a comedy, unleashing another movie in a career that could itself use a little re-imagining.

2 ) Two masseurs claim they were sexually harassed by John Travolta. Bad move, guys…you caught John during a career downswing. Should have waited for his next comeback film.

1 ) Britney Spears joins the judging panel of The X-Factor. Considering the state of her career, she’d be better off as a contestant.

9 ) President Obama catches flack for politicizing the death of Osama Bin Laden for campaign purposes. Hey, people, chill. It’s not like he landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier to announce “mission accomplished” on a war that had barely begun.

8 ) Texas sets its sights on Planned Parenthood. Fun fact! Texas has a higher teenager pregnancy rate than the national average. But I’m sure killing Planned Parenthood will fix that up just fine.

7 ) The Middleboro police chief wants to fine people who swear in public. Does the chief know that the term “fascist pig” isn’t a swear word?

6 ) Falmouth Selectman Melissa Freitag chides the media for “controlling the agenda” in response to her decision not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at a recent meeting. Ironic comment, considering it was her control of the agenda that led to this mess.

5 ) A special county committee prepares its report on the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative — soon to be known by CVEC opponents as “that document that doesn’t accomplish exactly what we wanted it to.”

4 ) A dream home on Nantucket goes up for sale at the cool price of $59 million. Also known as the tax levy on the entire island for the year 2009. Let that one roll around in your brain for a while.

3 ) “The Scream” sells for nearly $120 million. That’s not a scream, that’s a look of complete shock.

2) “Octomom” Nadia Suleman files for bankruptcy and lays out her financial plan for the future, which involves softcore pornography. Sounds like her financial planning is as sound as her family planning.

1 ) A man sues BMW after claiming his motorcycle gave him a chronic erection. BWM motorcycle sales skyrocket.

9 ) Newt Gingrich lets go of his fantasy of a come-from-behind primary victory and bows out of the presidential race. Aw, but Newt, you were SO CLOSE…

8 ) Concorde votes to ban the sale of water in single-serve bottles. Next up: juice boxes…not for environmental reasons, though, just because the juice is TERRIBLE.

7 ) A proposed EBT reform bill would bar recipients from using their taxpayer-funded benefits on things like bail, alcohol, pornography, and the Lottery. It’s called the “No Fun For You Until You Get a Job Act.”

6 ) Falmouth Selectman Melissa Freitag reveals herself to be an America-hating commie pinko by skipping over the ritual symbolic loyalty oath part of Monday’s meeting. Well done, Ms. Freitag…or should I say, COMRADE FREITAG?!

5 ) US Senator Scott Brown lays into Whole Foods for its decision not to carry fish with unsustainable populations, chiding the supermarket chain for “political correctness”…or, what rational people call “environmental stewardship.”

4 ) The Falmouth-based National Graduate School for Quality Management comes under fire for shady business practices and for handing out invalid degrees, including honorary doctorates. What? A school handed out invalid purely symbolic and inherently worthless fake degrees? The nerve!

3 ) Mashpee’s Superintendent of Schools Ann Bradshaw loses her new gig in Norton after contract negotiations fall apart. “I told her over and over, we don’t own the sun and the moon and the stars,” said the chairman of the Norton School Committee, “so we can’t give them to you.”

2 ) Lindsay Lohan continues to botch her comeback attempt by showing up late to film her cameo on “Glee.” Ironically, the set list for that episode included “Loser” and “The Bitch is Back.”

1 ) The Bruins lose a hockey game, fans mourn, then promptly forget they ever liked the team.

9 ) US Senator Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren get into a war of words over releasing their respective tax returns. Who cares? All that will tell us is which one we should resent more for being that much wealthier than the rest of us.

8 ) Dick Clark dies of a heart attack at 82. Wait, he was only 82? He was barely out of puberty!

7 ) Authorities conduct a series of busts on businesses engaging in EBT card fraud. Now, instead of taxpayers footing the bill for food stamp cheats, we get to foot the bill for their imprisonment. We just can’t win sometimes, can we?

6 ) Rick Santorum declines to endorse Mitt Romney, stating he’d rather leave the decision in the hands of the voters. Yeah, that plan worked out great for you, didn’t it, Rick?

5 ) Hundreds of runners drop out of the Boston Marathon due to the hot weather. Looks like the Kenyans’ dastardly plan to increase global temperatures so they can dominate the sport of marathon running is working nicely.

4 ) Daniel Adams heads to jail for abusing the state’s film tax credit incentive. He should have gone to jail for the two crappy movies he made.

3 ) Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie announce they will at last get married. For wedding gifts, they’re buying one another new children from their favorite third-world nation.

2 ) Good Morning America breaks the Today show’s 16-year streak as the top-rated morning show. Don’t get too thrown, American viewers: CBS is still dead last. Consistency!

1 ) Oprah Winfrey fails to make Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” list for the first time in nine years, getting bumped off for the likes of comedian Louis C.K. OUCH. Way to rub salt in the wound, Time Magazine.

9 ) Geraldo Rivera’s remark about a hoodie playing a role in Trayvon Martin’s murder sparks a nationwide backlash. People! Don’t you know that Geraldo is right? All kinds of dangerous people wear hoodies! Convenience store robbers, the Unabomber, D.B. Cooper…and just look at how menacing this dude is:

8 ) The MBTA announces a 23 percent rate hike that is expected to reduce ridership by 5.5 percent…which will reduce revenue, which will force another rate hike, which will reduce ridership…oh hell, just shut the trains down now.

7 ) Newt Gingrich fires a third of his campaign staff. I guess he’s so confident of winning the nomination, he decided he doesn’t need superfluous people like a campaign manager.

6 ) Rick Santorum declares that if Romney wins the GOP nomination, people might as well vote for Obama. At last! Rick Santorum says something sensible!

5 ) Dick Cheney undergoes a heart transplant procedure, prompting every liberal pundit and comedian in the world to make the exact same joke.

4 ) Rob Gronkowski surprises customers of a Foxboro Dunkin Donuts by serving them at the drive-through, proving that the economy is hitting all of us hard.

3 ) “The Hunger Games” smashes box office records. Who knew a movie about kids fighting to the death would be so popular? Oh, right: the Japanese, when they released “Battle Royale” 12 years ago.

2 ) A teaser trailer for the trailer for the second “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” movie hits the ‘net. And, amazingly, contains more story than the actual movie.

1 ) A nearly destitute Nadya “Octomom” Suleman posses nearly nude for a British men’s magazine, bragging about her body and her parenting skills. Apparently, though, not about her firm grasp on reality.

My goal is not to make any given candidate look good or bad (so kindly save your accusations of bias) but to provide context for statements made over the course of the campaign year. I welcome comments that confirm or refute my findings, and if you hear a politician saying something that sounds a bit suspect, let me know at bailey@capenews.net.

To christen this feature, I’ll start with a comment made by Thomas F. Keyes, the Sandwich Republican running against Senate President Therese M. Murray (D – Plymouth), at his campaign kick-off event this past weekend. He took a slightly different tack when addressing the old stand-by issues of economic and job growth:

“The incumbent says things are going well because unemployment is at 6.8 percent.  That’s nothing to be proud of.  Unfortunately, that figure doesn’t account for all of the people who are underemployed.  These are individuals who have had to take a lesser job or a job out of their field to make ends meet.  Right now, Massachusetts has an underemployment rate of 8.9%.  Let me say that again – it is 8.9 percent.  We are the highest in the nation.  When you combine underemployed and unemployed we have an employment problem of 15.7 percent.”

First, let’s put the unemployment issue into context. On March 8, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development announced that as of January 2012, the unemployment rate in Massachusetts was 6.9 percent — slightly higher than the figure Mr. Keyes quoted, but that number has not changed from December 2011 and is the lowest rate since December 2008.

Combine that with the fact the national unemployment rate is currently 8.3 percent, and that Massachusetts is tied for the 16th lowest unemployment rate in the country, things look decent for Massachusetts — decent, but not fantastic.

Now we move on the the “underemployment” claim, and first we need to distinguish between the two definitions of “underemployment” in play here.

The figure Mr. Keyes quoted was from a New Jobs for Massachusetts/Chmura Economics and Analytics study from December 2011, which looked at workers’ potential based on their education and training and compares it to their employment status; a person working one or more level below his level of qualification is considered underemployed.

To provide a simplistic example: if a man with a master’s degree in his chosen field is working a job that only requires a bachelor’s degree, he is underemployed.

The report “does not reflect workers who could be considered underemployed because their salary has dropped more than 30% from its peak, or because they are supervising half or fewer of the people they used to supervise.” In other words, New Jobs for Massachusetts places more weight on what a worker could be doing based on their qualifications rather than their income.

Or the number of hours worked, and that is how the federal government defines underemployment. The US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics defines underemployed Americans as people willing and able to work full-time but who work part-time for economic reasons (e.g., they had their hours cut or cannot find full-time work).

For the sake of comparison, we’ll look at the DoL’s “U-6″ standard for measuring unemployment, which includes the unemployed, the underemployed (as per its definition), and all “marginally attached workers,” a category that includes “discouraged workers”.

(Both marginally attached and discouraged workers are defined as people able and willing to work, and who have looked for a job within the preceding 12 months of the data collection but not within the preceding four weeks. The difference is that discouraged workers stopped looking for work specifically because they do not believe there is work available, while marginally attached workers cite any reason for giving up on their job hunting — a fine distinction that is not wholly relevant to this analysis, but is mentioned for sake of presenting complete information.)

According to the DoL, Nevada actually has the highest total unemployment/underemployment rate at 22.7 percent. Massachusetts’ unemployment/underemployment rate as per the U-6 measure is 14.3 percent, which ties it for 33^rd place with New York — again, decent but not spectacular, but below Mr. Keyes’ quoted total “unemployment problem” of 15.7 percent.

A recent Gallup poll more closely matches the DoL’s definition for underemployed; Gallup considers someone underemployed if they were totally jobless or were working fewer than 30 hours a week but wanted to work full-time. Based on that criteria, Gallup claimed the national average underemployment rate for 2011 was 18 to 20.9 percent. Massachusetts’ underemployment rate was 15 to 17.9 percent, placing it in the low end of Gallup’s “average” range — a downgrade from 2010, when Massachusetts recorded a below-average underemployment rate.

Once again, by this yardstick Massachusetts is doing fairly well, but not great.

Mr. Keyes’ statement paints a grimmer picture than Sen. Murray’s, which is not surprising since he’s trying to portray the incumbent as ineffectual on job growth and thus bolster his own image, but is his measure a more accurate picture of the state’s job situation?

This depends entirely on whether you regard underemployment as a reflection of one’s job status in terms of full-time versus part-time, as per the DoL and Gallup, or in terms of qualified for A-list work but stuck in a B-list (or lower) job.

Either way, it could be reasonably inferred that an underemployed individual is making less than his full earning potential, and in a worst-case scenario, that means an individual is relying on some form of public assistance and not contributing as much to the very same tax base that supports such programs.

CONCLUSIONS

Massachusetts is faring well in a national context and certainly could be doing worse, but it could also be doing better. Economic recovery in the state is still very much a work-in-progress, but historical employment data is showing a steady, long-term trend toward reducing unemployment. We’re on the right track, certainly.

All three studies cited here are valid measures of underemployment, but they share a similar flaw: they do not go into detail about the economics of underemployment. There is no mention of how working below one’s capacity, whether that is measured in hours or credentials, affects one’s income, which plays into any number of related issues. How many underemployed people are resorting to public assistance to make ends meet? How many are able to pay their expenses but cannot indulge in discretionary spending? How many have been forced to simply adopt a less extravagant but perfectly adequate lifestyle? These are questions that deserve answers.

Mr. Keyes brings much-needed attention to the issue of the underemployed. Adding that data to the mix provides a more textured perspective on the state’s and the nation’s job market and efforts in job creation, but Mr. Keyes chose to present numbers that put Massachusetts — and by extension his opponent — in a worse light; two other valid measures indicate that Massachusetts is not as bad off as New Jobs for Massachusetts says it is.

If Mr. Keyes wishes to have an honest discussion about underemployment, he should consider multiple sources of data rather than just those with an immediate political benefit — and should he win the race and find himself in a position to address the issue, he will need to have a complete picture before him if he is going to find the best remedy. It’s in his best political interests and, potentially, the best interests of his constituents to look at all the data.

9 ) Super Tuesday proves not-so-super as neither Mitt Romney nor Rick Santorum manage to break free of the pack. At this rate, we won’t have a true front-runner until the 2016 election cycle.

8 ) Rush Limbaugh issues a non-apology apology for his “slut” comments toward Sandra Fluke and explains he was merely engaging deliberate absurdity to make a point. Rush, I apologize if you regard me calling you a heartless, brainless, drug-addicted misogynist offensive, but I’m being deliberately absurd to make a point.*

7 ) Former “Growing Pains” star Kirk Cameron is accused of hate speech after he calls homosexuality “unnatural” and a threat to society. Now now, people, there’s a difference between hate speech and hating what someone says. Let’s not cheapen our contempt for real hate speech by giving this dope more credit than he’s due.

6 ) Questions arise about the Coalition Against an Undemocratic Regional Wastewater Authority’s authenticity. The Coalition responds with stony silence as to its membership. Yeah, that’ll show everyone! Nothing dispels rumors like evasiveness!

5 ) Global climate change skeptics in Massachusetts fall mysteriously silent on Thursday, March 8. Wonder why?

4 ) Newt Gingrich requests Secret Service protection…not because he’s in any danger, but because he’s running out of ways to feign relevance.

3 ) A California company introduces “Black Blood of the Earth,” a coffee with 40 times the caffeine as standard coffee. Writers and hardcore video gamers, your prayers have been answered.

2 ) Snooki confirms her pregnancy and vows to end her partying lifestyle…which means she’s no longer suitable for MTV, but hey, I hear TLC is looking to fill a few time slots.

1 ) Lindsay Lohan’s Saturday Night Live appearance draws a big audience but gets blasted by critics. Sort of her life in a nutshell, huh?

* Actually, I don’t apologize and there is no absurdity in my comment, because that’s what you are, jerk-ass.

9 ) Mitt Romney scores a solid win in Arizona and a thin victory over Rick Santorum in Michigan. I hope Ron Paul sweeps Super Tuesday, because I love watching these guys flail about desperately.

8 ) Rick Santorum said he wanted to throw up when he read a speech by President John Kennedy extolling the separation of church and state. Now Rick knows how all rational people feel whenever he says…well, anything. On a somewhat related note…

7 ) Patrick Kennedy berates Senator Scott Brown for claiming the late Ted Kennedy would agree with him about the freedoms of the Catholic church. Patrick responds by claiming Ayla Brown agreed with him that Taylor Hicks deserved to win season five of American Idol.

6 ) The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe chooses Taunton as its next date to the casino prom. Sadly, Taunton is not so far away that the tribe can ignore Middleboro’s anguished cries of “But you said you loved ME!”

5 ) “The Artist” wins Best Picture, proving to Hollywood that the best movies are high-budget, star-studded, special effects-heavy blockbusters.

4 ) Davy Jones dies at 66 and a generation goes, “The tentacle-faced guy from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies?” My point is, young people suck.

3 ) Ben & Jerry’s apologizes for its new Jeremy Lin-themed ice cream, which contains pieces of fortune cookie. I think they should really apologize for also putting the fortunes in.

2 ) Lindsay Lohan prepares to host Saturday Night Live. Who better to host a show that no one cares about anymore than an actress no one cares about anymore?

1 ) Snooki of Jersey Shore infamy is pregnant. Argue against making birth control widely available NOW, religious right!

“We’re seeing the leading edge of what could become a serious pandemic,” said Dr. Emil Moss, the CDC’s leading specialist on emerging communicable diseases. “If there’s a silver lining here, it’s unlikely to spread beyond a very small segment of the population.”

That small segment is the nation’s so-called “one percent,” the top earners in the U.S.

Dr. Moss hypothesized that the disease takes root in the brain’s right hemisphere and frontal lobe, which controls reasoning, problem-solving, and judgment, and impairs the individual’s ability to make logical connections on the topic of personal finances. The primary symptom is the spontaneous utterance of statements lacking in perspective on money matters; a sufferer of Romnitis seems incapable of distinguishing between his own financial status and those of lower-income individuals.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, for whom the ailment has been named, has not been officially diagnosed with Romnitis, but Romney has several times manifested symptoms, most recently during a campaign stop in Detroit, where he commented to a group of supporters that he and his wife Anne own between them four cars, two of them Cadillacs.

Later, when responding to a reporter’s question about his NASCAR-watching habits, he stated that he was not a fan himself, but was friends with several NASCAR team owners.

Last year during a debate, he also made his now-infamous $10,000 challenge to Texas Governor Rick Perry, and later blithely remarked that the $374,327 he collected that year in speaking fees was “not very much.”

Romney’s speaking fee income is roughly eight times the national median income.

Evidence that Romnitis was starting to spread emerged today in a Bloomberg story about Andrew Schiff, director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc., who expressed concern about his ability to make ends meet on his $350,000-a-year salary in the face of a reduced annual bonus.

“Schiff is as close to a textbook example of Romnitis as you can get,” Dr. Moss said. “This is a man who owns a 1,200-square foot duplex in New York City and a a summer home in Connecticut, sends his daughter to a $32,000-a-year private school, and plans to send his son to the same school in the near future, and there he was complaining, ‘I don’t have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand’.”

That same story also featured Richard Scheiner, who works for New York-based hedge fund Lane Gate Partners LLC, who spoke of his selling two motorcycles to better afford garaging fees for his two Audis and $17,000 in assorted costs for his two dogs.

“This is a man who griped that his Porsche was ‘the Volkswagen of supercars’ at a time when eight percent of Americans are out of work and wondering if they’ll have money for food and rent next month,” Dr. Moss said. “I’d call that a very severe case of Romnitis.”

Even before Romney manifested symptoms, Dr. Moss said there were early hints of a brewing pandemic, referring to Louisiana Rep. John Fleming, who told media outlets how hard it was feeding his family on $400,000 a year and dismissed critics as inciting “class warfare”; and to the he Parnell family of Tennessee who, in 2009, gained unwelcome notoriety when they were featured in a Wall Street Journal online article in which they discussed the hardships of maintaining their lifestyle — which included a $33,000 Infinity and a Florida summer home — on “only” $250,000 a year.

Dr. Moss was less than optimistic about finding a cure for Romnitis, which he likened to an addiction problem as much as to a communicable disease.

“These are people who grew into their incomes. They could have met their needs for transportation by purchasing a $16,000 Honda Civic but insisted on paying two to three times that for an Audi,” Dr. Moss said. “They’re surrounded by the more affordable opportunities the average American has to take — shopping at Walmart instead of Macy’s — but choose to embrace a luxurious lifestyle, and once they grow accustomed to that, breaking the cycle becomes increasingly difficult.”

“The irony is,” he added, “at their income brackets, they could afford top-notch psychological counseling.”