Meaning: Exhausted. Synonyms: jaded; wearied. Context example: my father's words had left me jaded and depressed. Similar: tired (depleted of strength or energy)
Text Size. One of the many startling results in Friday's unemployment report for June was how few American adults are currently employed. Even though the unemployment rate is technically 9.2%, the employment-population ratio fell to 58.2%, matching its recession low. But it might help to put this number into perspective: just how bad is it?
Less than two percent -- 1.94 percent, to be precise -- of the total United States workforce is employed by the federal government. This isn't all a function of recent political opposition to big government; the trend began in the 1950s.