The White House Watch » Unemployment

(Video) Obama on Unemployment: "At least its not 12 or 13 or 15."

Patrick — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:25:19 +0000

Obama says it could be worse at a speech yesterday in Racine, WI. According to Obama, Unemployment could be 15 percent, and not 9.6 percent as it is.

Lucky Us!

His argumentation is that of a kindergartner. If it were 15 percent he could say, "at least its not 20 percent." If 50, "at least its not 75 percent."

Can’t he get it in his head that 9.6 percent is an abysmally bad number on top of the fact that it is higher than the maximum 8 percent that he promised if his stimulus got through?

Americans have longer memories than you think, Mr. Obama, and we are not going to let you get off downplaying a 9.6 percent unemployment rate.

There are 15 million people who won’t accept, "at least its not 13 or 14 or 15."

Obama:"The problem is, number one, it’s hard to argue sometimes, things would have been a lot worse. Right? So people kind of say, yeah, but unemployment is still at 9.6. Yes, but it’s not 12 or 13, or 15."

Unemployment challenges Obama’s economic narrative

Caleb — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:17:32 +0000

Even as he touts his efforts to put more Americans to work, President Barack Obama faces a public increasingly skeptical of his ability to bring jobs back to Main Street.

During stops in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri, Obama will try to convince voters that his economic policies are working, despite an unemployment rate that’s expected to remain at painfully high levels for months if not years.

With high unemployment, Obama’s claims of recovery fall on deaf ears

Those voters – many of them crucial independents – will be key to Obama’s re-election prospects in 2012. And his fellow Democrats, facing a tough political climate in the November, need their support even sooner.

"The bottom line is that the Democrats are almost certain to be campaigning in economic circumstances that will not be politically favorable," said William Galston, a former domestic policy aide in Bill Clinton’s White House and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Read More: By JULIE PACE, Associated Press

PROMISES, PROMISES: Jobs bill won’t add many jobs

Caleb — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:15:00 +0000

It sounds great: A big jobs bill that would hand President Barack Obama a badly needed victory and please Republicans with tax cuts at the same time. But there’s a problem: It won’t create many jobs.
Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece – a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers – would work only on the margins.

Wait… a jobs bill that won’t create jobs…. brilliant!

As for the bill’s effectiveness, tax experts and business leaders said companies are unlikely to hire workers just to receive a tax break. Before businesses start hiring, they need increased demand for their products, more work for their employees and more revenue to pay those workers.

"We’re skeptical that it’s going to be a big job creator," said Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business. "There’s certainly nothing wrong with giving a tax break to a business that’s hired a new worker, especially in these tough times. But in terms of being an incentive to hire a lot of workers, we’re skeptical."

Rise in jobless claims even as ‘experts’ claim recovery

Caleb — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:33:00 +0000

A surprising jump in first-time claims for unemployment aid sent a painful reminder Thursday that jobs remain scarce six months into the economic recovery.

So much for a recovery…

The surge in last week’s claims deflated hopes among some analysts that the economy would produce a net gain in jobs in January and help fuel the recovery.

A Labor Department analyst said much of the increase was due to holiday-season-related administrative backlogs at the state agencies that process the claims. Still, economists noted that that would mean claims in previous weeks had been artificially low. Those earlier declines had sparked optimism that layoffs were tapering and that employers would add a modest number of jobs in January.

The January employment report will be issued Feb. 5. But the surveys used to compile that report were done last week, so economists are paying close attention to the jobless claims figures from that week.

"The trend in the data is still discouraging," Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial, wrote in a note to clients. "Hopes for a positive employment number in January … are rapidly dimming."

Obama’s Jobs Hole

Caleb — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:48:00 +0000

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the December employment report on January 8, and the mainstream media reported that 85,000 jobs were lost. The big story, as usual, was in the Household Survey. There was no mild leakage of 85,000 jobs there, but a whopping 589,000 jobs flushed down the drain.

Obama has overseen a precipitous drop in employment

Here are the numbers from the Bureau:

| Total | Change

Civilian labor force ….| 153,059,000| -661,000

Employment ………….| 137,792,000| -589,000

Unemployment ………| 15,267,000| -73,000

Not in labor force …..| 83,865,000| 843,000

These are the numbers used to calculate the unemployment rate. Note the reason why the rate didn’t skyrocket. A total of 661,000 people dropped out of the labor force in one month. Don’t think that things are going to get better any time soon.

But let’s look beyond the numbers to the trends, also available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is where things really get scary.

Employment in the U.S. is now down from the peak of 146.5 million reached back in November 2007. That’s a loss of 8.5 million jobs in two years.

Thank goodness the mainstream media has not made invidious comparisons to the Bush recession of 2001-02. Back then, only 2 million jobs were lost, a mere scratch compared to the gaping wound in jobless Obama America. You can see why knowledgeable people speak of 2009 as the year the locusts ate. What was President Obama doing flogging health care reform for a whole year when his policy should have been — from noon on January 21, 2009 — jobs, jobs, jobs?

Read More: By Christopher Chantrill, American Thinker

De-stimulate

Caleb — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:50:00 +0000

To get America back to work, the tax-and-regulatory obstacles from Washington must be removed.

The Stimulus has helped bring our unemployment to 10%, maybe it’s time we try a new appoach

After the arrival of a disappointing December jobs report, my thought on putting America back to work is simple: de-stimulate. That’s right. Get rid of the Obama stimulus monster, including the government takeover of health care, cap-and-trade, and all this nonsensical talk of creating green jobs. Get rid of the increase in marginal personal tax rates and capital-gains tax rates. Get rid of the payroll tax hike from the health-care talks. Get rid of the spending that is a counterweight to growth. Get rid of it, every part of it. It’s creating so much uncertainty that even profitable businesses are afraid to hire new workers and expand.

It’s like business is on hold as it waits for the next Washington shoe to fall.

Check this out. On Friday, the day of the sub-par jobs release, President Obama comes out with a new green-jobs program that will cost taxpayers $2.3 billion. He predicts targeted tax credits for all of his faddish “energy savers” — presumably determined by hoards of EPA bureaucrats — will create 17,000 new jobs. This is out of a total workforce of 153 million.

And wait, it gets better. The average cost of these alleged new green jobs will be $135,000 per job. It’s sorta like the $780 billion stimulus plan, half of which has supposedly saved 1 million jobs at roughly $200,000 per job.

Read More: By Larry Kudlow, National Review

Obama Calls Stimulus False Reports ‘Side Issue,’

Caleb — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:18:00 +0000

President Obama brushed off criticism over his administration’s inaccurate reporting on job creation Wednesday, telling Fox News the accounting is an “inexact science” and that any errors are a “side issue” when compared with the goal of turning the economy around. He said job growth is his No.1 responsibility.

Barack Obama says the real focus is jobs; well where exactly are they?

The president was responding to criticism from Republicans, as well as Democratic Rep. David Obey, who drew attention to embarrassing errors on the Recovery.gov Web site that tracks stimulus funding. The site is under fire for claiming a number of jobs were created from the stimulus in congressional districts that don’t exist and accepting unrealistic and inflated jobs data from various sources.

Obama said he understood the “frustration” but said his focus has to be on accelerating job growth.

Jobless rate tops 10 pct. for first time since ‘83

Caleb — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:24:00 +0000

U.S. unemployment rose by more than expected in October to hit its highest level in more than 26 years and employers cut more jobs than forecast, a sign the labor market continues to struggle as the economy emerges from its deep recession.

Obama’s policies keep pushing unemployment upwards

The unemployment rate, calculated using a survey of households as opposed to companies, rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2%, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast an increase to 9.9%.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 190,000 last month, with the largest job losses in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade. Economists had expected a 175,000 decrease.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed has increased by 8.2 million and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points.

Read More: By LUCA DI LEO and JEFF BATER, Wall Street Journal

Message to Obama: Stop The Spending And Cut The Taxes

Caleb — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:51:22 +0000

Economy: Now that the bad news of Chicago’s failure to land the 2016 Olympics is out, can we move on and do something about an economy that’s bleeding jobs?

Almost lost in the Olympic hoopla was news that the U.S. shed 263,000 jobs in September and that unemployment has reached a 26-year high of 9.8%. This is a serious problem, but it isn’t being addressed.

Here we’ve had a $787 billion stimulus package, $700 billion in TARP funds and a variety of Treasury and Fed initiatives that, according to Bloomberg News, add up to $11.6 trillion in taxpayer exposure — all as part of an effort to revive the economy. And what do we have to show for it?

At the start of the year, the White House forecast 4 million new jobs by the end of 2010. It took some uncharacteristic understatement from Vice President Joe Biden, as he met with his middle-class task force Friday, to put the jobs report in perspective: “We still have a whole lot more work to do.”

No kidding. Since the start of the year, the U.S. has lost 4.1 million jobs — 7.2 million total since the recession began.

Americans were told early this year that passing the stimulus was vital, that it would put us back on the path to economic growth and that joblessness would top out at 8.5%. Now we’re looking at 10%.

Politicians may act surprised, but they shouldn’t be. They caused it. Policies based on massive government spending, higher taxes and costly regulation don’t work.

Obamanomics leads to higher Unemployment

Caleb — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:08:12 +0000

U.S. employers cut a deeper-than-expected 263,000 jobs in September, lifting the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, according to a government report on Friday that fueled fears the weak labor market could undermine economic recovery.

Obama’s policies are prolonging and worsening the depression

The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was the highest since June 1983 and payrolls had now dropped for 21 consecutive months.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 180,000 in September and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent the prior month. The poll was conducted before reports, including regional manufacturing surveys, showed some deterioration in employment measures.

The government revised job losses for July and August to show 13,000 more jobs lost than previously reported. Preliminary annual benchmark revisions, released together with September’s employment report showed that total non-farm payroll employment for March would have to be revised down about 824,000.