The unemployment rate has been trending down for the last few months, but that isn’t always the best indicator of strength in the job market because it doesn’t take into account the unemployed who have stopped looking altogether.

However, according to a new survey of 2,541 adults by Harris Interactive, Americans may be starting to feel real improvements in their local job market.

“How would you rate the current job market of your region of the nation?” was the question Harris posed. Twenty percent said “good,” 24 percent answered “neither good nor bad” and 56 percent replied “bad.”

While those numbers are generally pretty negative, it marks an improvement over January, when only 14 percent said “good,” and October of 2011, when only nine percent did.

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