Jul 16 2009

Obama, Pelosi & Reid Are Failures On American Jobs

Published by at 7:56 am under Measuring The Recovery

Update: Karl Rove nails the Liberal Democrats in DC on their promises not kept to America on the jobs front:

When it came to the stimulus package, the president and his administration promised, in the words of National Economic Director Larry Summers, “You’ll see the effects begin almost immediately.” Now it’s clear that those promised jobs and growth haven’t materialized.

In February, Mr. Obama said this about the goals of his stimulus package: “I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving four million jobs.” He later explained the stimulus’s $787 billion would “go directly to . . . generating three to four million new jobs.” And his Council of Economic Advisors issued an official analysis showing that the unemployment rate would top out in the third quarter of this year at just over 8%.

Earlier this year, Mr. Obama assured us that most of the stimulus money “will go out the door immediately.” But it hasn’t. Only about 7.7% of the stimulus has been spent in the six months since its passage, and more of it will be spent in the program’s last eight years than in its first year.

President Obama made promises and commitments he failed to meet. He is accountable, as are all the Democrats (and few Reps) who voted for this failed liberal economic experiment. – end update

The sad truth about the idiocy that was the liberal stimulus experiment back in January of this year is finally coming into focus. Just like with global warming, the liberal fantasy was that they would turn around unemployment this year through federal spending programs, but reality is going the other direction:

Federal Reserve officials see signs of a turnaround in the economy but expect unemployment to remain high through 2010, according to minutes of their June meeting released Wednesday.

The officials predicted a range in unemployment of between 9.7 and 10.5 percent for the rest of 2009, and a range of 8.5 to 10.6 percent in 2010, according to the minutes. 

The outlook was worse than what was forecast in April by Fed officials. Unemployment projects were about one-half a percentage point higher across the board. 

The unemployment rate in June hit 9.5 percent, and the Department of Labor reported an unexpectedly high 467,000 lost jobs for the month.

It has not been unexpected to many of us, who said from the beginning the liberal stimulus plan was doomed for disaster. And the liberal mistake is spreading its damage across these United States. Take Washington State:

The unemployment rate in Washington state rose to 9.3 percent in June from May’s revised rate of 9.1 percent, state officials said Tuesday.

That’s the result of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid stimulus experiment – it failed. How about Missouri:

 

Missouri’s unemployment rate hit a nearly 26-year high last month as the state shed 7,400 non-farm jobs.

The Missouri Department of Economic Development reported Tuesday that seasonally adjusted unemployment rose to 9.3 percent in June from 9 percent in May. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the June figure was the highest in Missouri since October 1983.

 

That is another purple state that voted for Obama and is now bruised and beaten by the incompetence emanating from DC.  How about Florida:

 

A new report finds that the economic future of the Sunshine State’s residents is not very bright.

The report of key economic indicators from the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy’s finds that per person, income growth in Florida has fallen behind the rest of the nation and that the gap in income between the most affluent and those on the bottom rung of the economic ladder is among the widest in the nation – and getting wider.

In addition to having one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates – in June, it hit 9.5 percent – many of Florida’s jobs are low paying. The national average annual earnings for all occupations were $42,270 as of May 2008. Florida’s average was almost 10 percent less, at $38,470.

 

The so called progressives in DC who supposedly look out for the needy are the ones doing the most damage to them now. Higher energy costs, low employment, massive underemployment (lowered salaries), and job killing policies on energy and health care. 

But wait, I think I see one of those mythical ‘green shoots’ of hope in Oregon:

 

Oregon’s unemployment rate remains a record-high 12.2 percent, state officials said Monday.

But the state added 3,600 construction jobs in June, a sign that the state’s economy might be improving. The state normally adds 2,000 construction jobs in June.

 

On Monday, officials revised the state’s May unemployment number down to 12.2, meaning the unemployment rate remained flat in June.

Oregon’s unemployment rate in May was the highest level since the state began measuring it in 1976.

 

 

Excellent. President Obama and the liberals in DC have stabilized at least one state. Now it is stuck in 1976 at the beginning of the last disastrous liberal democrat president’s term.

Here’s the deal. Even if the unemployment number stops falling, the pain will not stop because that number doesn’t reflect under employment – those getting by with a much lesser job and salary:

In California and a handful of other states, one out of every five people who would like to be working full time is not now doing so.

 

It is a startling sign of the pain that the Great Recession is inflicting, and it is largely missed by the official, oft-repeated statistics on unemployment. The national unemployment rate has risen to 9.5 percent, the highest level in more than a quarter-century. Yet it still excludes all those who have given up looking for a job and those part-time workers who want to be working full time.

Include them — as the Labor Department does when calculating its broadest measure of the job market — and the rate reached 23.5 percent in Oregon this spring, according to a New York Times analysis of state-by-state data. It was 21.5 percent in both Michigan and Rhode Island and 20.3 percent in California. In Tennessee, Nevada and several other states that have relied heavily on manufacturing or housing, the rate was just under 20 percent this spring and may have since surpassed it.

 

The full rate is 16.4% nationally, as I charted below.

 

  • U1 = Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force.
  • U2 = Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force.
  • U3 = Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate).
  • U4 = Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers.
  • U5 = Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other marginally attached workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.
  • U6 = Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian force plus all marginally attached workers (the total unemployed and underemployed).

 

Obama and the dems will be clapping themselves on their backs if We The People finally hit rock bottom. A historic bottom. They will pretend to take  credit for stopping the damage at the end, when they should be taking credit for making the whole mess worse in the first place.

11 responses so far

11 Responses to “Obama, Pelosi & Reid Are Failures On American Jobs”

  1. daniel ortega says:

    See what you make of this:

    http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854

    Health care bill to make private insurance plans illegal.
    You can keep yours until you retire or change jobs, then no new private
    insurance. New people can just forget it.

    Even here in England, where we have the NHS, I am free to buy my
    own private insurance, which I do do – the NHS is rubbish if you need
    anything more than a prescription from your GP.

    I would be afraid if I lived there now.

  2. WWS says:

    Our only hope, Daniel, is that Obama fails.

    Although I’m not sure you’re allowed to say that here yet.

  3. Mike M. says:

    I’ve been noting the similarities between the United States in 2009 and France in 1788 for about six months. They are getting more pronounced.

    This is going to get a lot nastier before it gets better.

  4. lurker9876 says:

    Before it gets better? After Obama gets out of the office – either term expiration or forced out? Doesn’t matter how…the question is when will things get better and how will things get better?

    There are NO business confidence here in this country.

    Obama is NOT the only issue. The issue is BOTH Obama and the Democrats…all of them. Even the blue dogs.

    The House has NO business in cranking out bills like the Cap n Trade, stimulus plans, health care reform.

    The House should represent the constituency of their own states but they don’t represent the constituency of their own states and according to the US Constitution. If they are representing the constituency of their own states, then their constituencies are just as stupid.

  5. Alert1201 says:

    WWS – as long as you are specific and say you want his policies to fail and not Obama – that would be racist.

  6. WWS says:

    Oh good, alert, at least I’m free to hope that Henry Waxman fails.

    Although I guess that makes me a google-eyed-bad-teethist.

  7. Alert1201 says:

    WSS – More like a google-eyed-crater-nostriled-bad-teethist

  8. KauaiBoy says:

    Not sure how WWS became a racist since we are not sure what race bobo subscribes to. If anything it is bigotry toward stupid people and I feel the same way. What is needed is a veto proof majority in Congress of smart people which would make bobo irrelevant. Not only were they wrong on the solution but they were wrong on how it would be received.

    I think the good news out of all of this is the proof that the economy is bigger and stronger than any government. Governments can only hurt the economy in the long run and can not spend its way into sustainable growth because they can not create demand. Thus Government Motors can make all the green cars they want but it won’t create demand unless that’s what people want. This economy has been bleeding off the excesses and unsustainable growth from the past 2 decades (and that would include two dissimilar admins in theory at least). It will recover and emerge with smarter consumers, more conscience of the benefits of saving and more aware of the dangers of a bloated federal government.

  9. AJStrata says:

    WWS & Alert,

    Here’s the subtle difference on selectively opposing Obama (and how you can entice support from the center and all those Obama voters).

    (1) I want Obama to succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan. So far he is following Bush and that is good.

    (2) I want Obama to succeed in keeping the NSA-FISA changes in place and protecting our intelligence community from scrutiny and show courts. He is on the fence some times, but so far so good.

    (3) No need to hope he fails on the economy – he has already done that.

    (4) And most people are resisting his energy and health plans. We can hope he learns and changes course – that is not out of bounds.

    But as President we should hope he doesn’t fail, but more he learns better what should be done and can gain some independence from the liberal whackos. That is being positive instead of useless objection.

    It is subtle, but you need to build bridges. I noted some idiot blaming RINOs because supposedly they voted for him (wrong – we supported our candidates known as McCain-Palin). It was another example of stupidity on the right where they seem more concerned with validating their arrogance than working with fellow Americans.

    As long as people perceive the former instead of the latter, the far right deserves to be out of power.

  10. Redteam says:

    The so called progressives

    I like the diversion of ‘socialists’ calling themselves ‘progressives’,
    do they really think it is an effective smokescreen?

  11. […] I posted a sample of state unemployment yesterday, showing the spread of unemployment like a cancer across the nation. Today we can add historic unemployment in Kentucky, Idaho and Illinois. Is the stimulus package working? Of course not! The money is not getting out of the lethargic and bloated federal bureaucracy. The latest numbers on the 6 federal organizations I have been tracking is as abysmal as it has been for the last 5 months since the liberal stimulus-pork experiment was rammed through Congress. Here are the charts as of last week (July 10th, 2009). […]