Unemployment Tops 10%

Yikes.

The government reported Friday that unemployment rate spiked to 10.2%, up from 9.8% in September. It is the highest that this rate has been since April 1983. Economists had forecast an increase to 9.9%.

There was also a net loss of 190,000 jobs in October, according to the Labor Department, an improvement from a revised estimate of 219,000 job losses in September. However, economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of only 175,000 jobs in October. This was the 22nd straight month of job losses.

Government efforts to end job losses have had limited effects, although the Obama administration estimated last month that 640,000 jobs were created or saved by the federal stimulus package passed earlier this year. But that’s modest compared to the 7.3 million jobs that have been lost by the economy since the start of 2008.

And, of course, we know that the 640,000 figure is BS. 

UPDATE: BTW, remember this from Innocent Bystanders?

Remember that this chart was the one the President Obama published in order to justify the stimulus bill.  While some are engaging in revisionist history about the goal of the stimulus bill, the White House was very clear at the time that it was supposed to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs.  It hasn’t.  It’s a failure.  Better to man up and admit it so we can move on rather than continue to engage in fantasy. 

1. Yep, I know that the unemployment will be up in November as well.  :(

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 0933 hrs




2. Yeah the 640,000 number is wrong - but let’s say we saved a million anyway!!

   What a joke. The only thing the stimulus stimulated was Obama’s donors and other government workers.

   Get ready for even worse if they foist this ridiculous health care fiasco on us tomorrow!! Businesses will cut even further.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 0940 hrs




3. Actual unemployment is closer to 15%.

   Don’t forget that the unemployment numbers tend to not include self employed people who don’t go on unemployment when they are under-employed. I will tell you now that every home builder, electrician, plumber, and general contractor I know is teetering right now.

   Obama owns this mess. The stimulus was supposed to fix the problem, and we can all clearly see that it has not.

   When Novembers numbers come out, I think we are really going to see this mess begin to effect his popularity.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 0953 hrs




4. Nor does it include the percentage that has given up looking for a job, those that retired before they were ready, those in the trades, still working…but barely scraping by.

   Jason, sorry to hear, good luck.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 1007 hrs




5. To quote Rush: “How’s that hope & change workin’ for ya?”

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 1025 hrs




6. You need to look at the U6 number to get a feel for the real pain. That’s closer to the way that the “unemployment number” was calculated back in the Reagan Ression when it was last this high.

   By that old-school arithmetic our situation is even worse than then: 17.6% unemployment (unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus part-timers looking for full-time work).

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 1052 hrs




7. Hmmmmmm……..
   I thing now would be a good time for another School Board Referendum!!

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 1057 hrs




8. It’s all Bush’s fault.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 1136 hrs




9. “It’s all Bush’s fault.”

   But wait ... the light blue line says that is the trajectory we were going to follow if nothing was done, and the ‘Mess Bush Left’ was allowed to go on without intervention.

   Hmmmm ...

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 1312 hrs




10. Looking at this chart again - look at the 2014 numbers. Even IF Obama was right - we’d be in the exact same employment numbers in 2014 without the stimulus - we’d just be $1 Trillion less in debt.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 1345 hrs




11. One thing this chart indisputably demonstrates is that ANY economic projections from Obama’s’ economic team CANNOT be believed.

    Let this be a lesson to us when he predicts how much Obamacare or any other of his save-the-country-socialism programs will cost or produce.

    THEY DON’T KNOW

    The truth is they don’t care.  The know socialism is a barbed hook.  You jam it in, when it doesn’t work, you CAN’T just pull it back out.  So what if they are wrong. They already got what they wanted and you can’t go back.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 06, 2009 at 2118 hrs




12. When in doubt, redefine success.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 07, 2009 at 1200 hrs