High Unemployment is the Goal not the Problem.

Why have our government leaders done so little to stem the tide of unemployment? Its because the people that own our politicians (the usual suspect crew of sleazy lobbyists) represents that one percent of the population that likes high unemployment. Who likes unemployment? Owners like high unemployment. Puts the "slave" back into "wage slave". Try and leave your job. Go ahead try. Leave your job if that job provides decent health insurance. Go ahead and try. You're stuck.  That's the point. The at will laws for employees are a bad joke. Who has more power in an at will environment? The employer almost always does.

You can read a longer discussion by Marx, best analyst of capitalism ever, on this subject here, but this is the nut graph:

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

IN other words, the people who have bought the president and the congress don't like it when unemployment is low and wages are high. Not good incentives. Same reason that wall street crooks do not go to jail, why fracking continues...We need an unbought Third Party.