The unemployment rate in May fell to 9.7 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. Despite the small improvement, the economy remains a disaster for middle class Americans.  Almost 17 percent can't find full-time work.  Meanwhile, President Obama made his third trip to the gulf coast since an April 20 oil rig explosion caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history.  In Vermont, Sanders announced support for the 1,500 National Guard members deployed in Afghanistan, the war that just surpassed Vietnam as the longest in U.S. history.

Jobs The 431,000 jobs created in May were the most in a single month in a decade, but the number was skewed by hiring for the Census. The underemployment rate fell to 16.6 percent in May from 17.1 percent in April. That statistic counts people in part-time jobs because they could not full-time work.  Almost 6.8 million people without jobs in May had been out of work for more than six months. The average length of time people went without work was 34.4 weeks, longer than at any time since 1948, when the government started to keep track.  To read more in The New York Times, click here.

Oil Spill Six weeks after an explosion caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a containment cap was put in place but BP was working on Friday to fit the device into place so it could capture some of the oil still gushing from a broken pipe at the bottom of the sea.  President Obama was making his third visit to the gulf coast on Friday. Vermont, meanwhile, is giving the nation a new appreciation for the importance of energy efficiency. Across Vermont, savings from energy efficiency exceeded the growth in electric demand for the past three years, according to data from Efficiency Vermont, the statewide provider of energy efficiency services. "If there's a silver lining in this terrible ecological disaster, it would be that we wake up and understand right now that we have to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, away from offshore drilling, and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy," Senator Bernie Sanders said in an article in the latest edition of The Vermont Bernie Buzz. 

Vermont National Guard With about 1,500 Vermont National Guard members deployed in Afghanistan, Sanders and Major General Michael Dubie announced on Tuesday continued funding for a model outreach initiative and a new childcare program.  "When these soldiers were deployed, Vermonters made a promise to them that we would do our best to protect them and their families when they were in combat and when they returned," Sanders said. At a press conference at Camp Johnson, the senator and the guard adjutant general detailed how $2.4 million in federal funds alloted at Sanders' request is continuing a Vermont outreach program that has become a model for other states.  Sanders secured another $1.6 million Supplemental Childcare Support for Families of Deployed Vermont Reserve Component. "The Pentagon and Veterans Affairs are betting that one state - Vermont - could become a national model," according to a Stars and Stripes article about the Vermont outreach program. To watch video of the press conference, click here.

Summer Reading List On C-SPAN's Book TV, Sanders talked about his summer reading list. He is finishing 13 Bankers by Simon Johnson about the concentration of financial power in the U.S. He's also reading Traitor to His Class, an FDR biography by H.W. Brands. He said he plans to read Eaarth, in which fellow Vermonter Bill McKibben writes that so much damage had been done to the planet that it needs a new name.