The Wall Street Journal spotlights those other jobless numbers:

The U.S. jobless rate was flat at 9.6% in September, but the government’s broader measure of unemployment rose even more to 17.1%, the highest rate since April and down just slightly from the October 2009 high of 17.4%.
The comprehensive gauge of labor underutilization, known as the “U-6″ for its data classification by the Labor Department, accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs.
The key to the rise in the broader unemployment rate was due to a 612,000 jump in the number of people employed part time but who would prefer full-time work. Meanwhile, the number of discouraged workers and those who classify themselves as “marginally attached” to the labor force also increased.
Those jumps were likely affected by a temporary end to extended unemployment benefits. Earlier this year, Congress let an extension of jobless benefits lapse. During that period people may have dropped out of the work force, and though many returned in August some were still coming back into the system last month.

Obama’s statement with Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland yesterday was heavy on the traditional points:

When we arrived in Washington, the Republicans in Congress, they had a different idea. They knew it would take more than a couple of years to climb out of this unbelievable recession that they had created. They knew that by the time the midterm rolled around that people would still be out of work; that people would still be frustrated. And they figured that if we just sat on the sidelines and opposed every idea, every compromise that I offered, if they spent all their time attacking Democrats instead of attacking problems, that somehow they would prosper at the polls. So they spent the last 20 months saying no -– even to policies that they’d supported in the past. No to middle class tax cuts. No to help for small businesses. No to a bipartisan deficit reduction commission that they had once sponsored. I said yes; they said no. I’m pretty sure if I said the sky was blue, they’d say no. (Laughter.) If I said there are fish in the sea, they’d say no. See, their calculation was if Obama fails, then we win.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: That was their calculation. Well, they might have thought that playing political games would get them through an election, but I knew it wasn’t going to get America through our crisis. So I made a different choice. Instead of playing politics, I took whatever steps were necessary to stop an economic freefall –- (applause.) I did what we needed to do even if it wasn’t popular, even if it wasn’t easy. Because you all did not elect me to do what was easy. You didn’t elect me to spend all day looking at the polls and figuring out how to keep me in office. You elected me to do what was right. That’s why you elected me, to do what’s right. (Applause.) And 20 months later, 20 months later, we no longer face the possibility of a second depression. Our economy is growing again.

“Our economy is growing again.” But Americans just don’t feel it or see it around them.