Unemployment Numbers Today Indicate Weak Economy & Reality of Obama’s Failed Policies

ARRA News Service: The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly jobs report for March, 2013. The Washington Post labeled the report "dim" and said, "A streak of robust job growth came to a halt in March, signaling that U.S. employers may have grown cautious in a fragile economy."

BLS reported a gain of 88,000 jobs which was the smallest in nine month. March’s job gain was less than half the average of 196,000 jobs in the previous six months. Considering that some in Congress want to grant amnesty, thus giving illegals open access to jobs, and the military draw down with vets returning and looking for work, things may get far worse with jobs not being available to meet the needs. Employers are not hiring our of fear of legislative mandates cranked out principally by Democrats programs. Obamacare alone is stopping the many small businesses from hiring more people.

And the BLS report of 7.6 percent unemployment is not great news because it does not reflect the massive number that 663,000 Americans dropped out of the workforce last month - people stopped looking for work.

WP noted, "The government uses a separate survey of households to calculate the unemployment rate. It counted 290,000 fewer people as unemployed — not because they found a job but because they stopped looking for one. The percentage of working-age adults with a job or looking for one is a figure that economists call the participation rate. It’s the lowest since 1979. Normally during an economic recovery, an expanding economy lures job seekers back into the labor market. But this time, many have stayed on the sidelines, and more have joined them."

House Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise responded to the March jobs report.“Today’s weak unemployment report includes the lowest workforce participation since 1979 when Americans were dealing with the economic malaise of the Jimmy Carter years, and nearly 40 percent of those currently unemployed have been out of work for more than 27 weeks," Scalise said. "More Americans have given up looking for work, yet President Obama continues to turn his back on common-sense proposals to create high-paying U.S. jobs. That’s a failure of leadership, and American families deserve better than this failed Obama economy.

“More must be done to reverse years of damage by the Obama administration. If the liberals in Washington truly want to help create American jobs, the President should approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, cut harmful taxes and radical regulations that are killing jobs, and repeal Obamacare. The American people want government to get out of the way and they want the President to green light common-sense projects like Keystone XL that will create jobs and promote growth here at home. Our nation won’t fully rebound from the failed Obama economy until the President finally starts working with Congress to create jobs, control spending and get our nation on the path to a balanced budget.”House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said in a statement:“The president’s policies continue to make it harder for Americans to find work. Hundreds of thousands fled the workforce last month and unemployment remains far above what the Obama administration promised when it enacted its ‘stimulus’ spending plan.

“To help grow our economy and expand opportunity for all Americans, Republicans passed a balanced budget that addresses our spending problem, unleashes North American energy like Keystone, and fixes our broken tax code, and voted to replace the president’s sequester with smarter cuts and reforms. One of the best things President Obama can do is follow the House and outline a balanced budget next week – one that includes entitlement reforms that are not conditional on enactment of more tax increases, which will suppress growth instead of encourage it.”Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today responded to today's BLS report:"663,000 Americans dropped out of the workforce last month. "206,000 fewer Americans were employed. 290,000 more Americans were unemployed. Yet, the headline will be that the unemployment rate dropped in March to 7.6 percent. Never has the lie of the improving Obama economy ever been more starkly revealed than in today's March unemployment report, where the consequences of the destruction of the American workforce by policies that promote government dependence over work are hidden behind a statistical drop in the percentage of workers who are unemployed.

"At this rate, Obama may just make history by achieving a 0 percent unemployment rate because nobody's in the workforce. You might just call that full unemployment."David Pasch of Generation Opportunity analyzed the BLS report and provided the following data,: "Opportunities remain scarce for young people after years of debt-fueled government spending. Millennials ages 18-29 unemployment was for March 2013 is 11.7 percent. For African-Americans the rate is 20.1 percent, for Hispanics 12.6 percent, and for women for March 2013 is 10 percent. The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.7 million young adults that are not counted as "unemployed" by the U.S. Department of Labor. If the labor force participation rate were factored into the 18-29 youth unemployment calculation, the actual 18-29-unemployment rate would rise to 16.2 percent.

"March was another lost month for my generation. Young people are finding fewer opportunities and are being saddled with the costs of our country's unsustainable deficits. Some people will try to blame the laughably small cuts to government spending known as the sequester – but aside from the Post Office, government actually added 9,000 jobs last month.

"After years of deficit spending and government meddling in the economy, 1 in 6 of us don’t have a job. Half of us are doing no better than a part-time job. All the while, we are all stuck with a bill that keeps getting bigger. It’s like we’re the last one to leave the bar and everybody else ran out without paying their tab."This last comment should be of concern to all. It is a cry from those who are supposed to be entering the workforce as others are retiring. As long as the progressive agenda's continue to be both voiced and aggressively pushed by both the President and the U.S. Senate Democrat Majority, small business owners' fear and practicality will rule out opening the door for more employees. Obamacare itself caries a significant penalty in healthcare costs for having too many employees. Then there is the EPA agenda and other Federal Agencies attacking businesses or reducing their options for success.

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