Darin Wedel, an out-of-work Texas electronics engineer who more than two months ago sent his resume to the White House at the request of President Obama, is still unemployed. It's a tale for our times.

Wedel sent his resume to the White House after Obama told Wedel's wife in a Jan. 30 Internet forum that the U.S. doesn't have enough home-grown engineers to fill all the opportunities.

Turns out, that's not exactly true. "Not even recruiting companies are calling anymore," Jennifer Wedel, a Fort Worth, Texas, mother of two, said of her jobless hubby.

As the Wedel family might tell you — and as April's mediocre gain of 120,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs shows — the economy's employment engine isn't in high gear.

Numbers tell the story. Since Obama entered office promising a jobs boom from his "stimulus," the economy has lost 1.6 million jobs.