October Unemployment Report

Updated 12:18 PM - ARRA News Service - This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest jobs numbers.

Opening Summary: The Economy Sucks and Remains Stuck under the Obama administration!

Today, Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) released the following statement in reaction to the October jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor. A net total of 171,000 jobs were created, and the unemployment rate for October increased to 7.9 percent.

“Today’s lackluster jobs report is simply the latest confirmation that the economic policies of the Obama Administration have failed the over 12 million Americans who are unemployed and looking for work. Those dropping out of the labor force have outnumbered new employees by almost 7 to 1 after almost 4 years of the Obama economy. This is more evidence that the President has taken the country down the wrong track, and we must reverse course.”

And consider this disturbing reality, the real unemployment rate was 14.6%. This includes the underemployed and those who have given up looking for work. No wonder the the economy and unemployment is "in the toilet" under the Obama administration.

Background: This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest jobs numbers, reporting the unemployment rate edged up to 7.9% after the economy added 171,000 jobs.

This month’s report is further confirmation that too little is being done to spur a recovery. It’s unacceptable that millions of Americans sit out of work, waiting to see our economy turn around.

We’ve all heard the president on the campaign trail saying things are getting better. But Americans can see all around them the last four years has not yielded the recovery we need. We cannot afford to wait any longer. The last four years have just given us more spending and more debt, doing little to put Americans back to work. It just isn’t working.

Every month we see the unemployment tick up or down by a few tenths of a percentage point, but the simple truth is that it remains far too high. In the remaining few days of the campaign, we’ll surely see candidates politicize this report. But Washington must see this as more than just another monthly report. These are Americans who are trying to get by, struggling to make ends meet. This isn’t about politics. This is about people.

Updates Added 12:18 pm:

The New York Times [Liberal leaning] noted, “In the last assessment of the job market before the presidential election, the Labor Department announced Friday that the nation’s employers added 171,000 positions in October, and more jobs than initially estimated in both August and September.” The AP adds, “The unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in September. That was mainly because many more people began looking for work, and not all of them found jobs.”

The AP notes, “[T]here were also signs of the economy's persistent weakness.Reuters writes, “A full recovery from the 2007-09 recession remains distant and even sustained monthly job gains of 171,000 would likely bring down the unemployment rate only slowly. The jobless rate, which peaked during the recession at 10 percent, remains about 3 percentage points above its pre-recession level. Indeed, the persistently high unemployment rate has undercut wage growth. Average hourly earnings fell one cent last month to $23.58. Over the past year, they have risen just 1.6 percent, the lowest on records dating to early 2007.”

And according to the NYT, “A queue of about 12 million unemployed people remain waiting for work, about two out of five of whom have been out of a job for more than six months. That is in addition to more than eight million people who are working part-time but really want full-time jobs.”

Not noted in the articles is that after two years of President Obama getting the economic policies he wanted enacted by a Democrat Congress, and four years of him putting in place regulations he prefers, the economy doesn’t appear to be any better off than when the president took office. The unemployment rate is still above where it was in January 2009, even after the nearly $1 trillion stimulus, paid for with borrowed money. And unemployment far exceeds where the Obama administration’s economists predicted it would be today if the stimulus passed. As the AP puts it, “President Barack Obama will face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any incumbent since Franklin Roosevelt and slightly higher than the 7.8 percent on Inauguration Day.”

The Details Beyond the Numbers: One of the ARRA News Service's non-partisan research sources is Public Notice. Today they provided the following facts behind and beyond the BLS report:

Washington holds us back from a recovery!

·      It’s no coincidence that as the debt has increased 52% over the past 44 months, the unemployment rate has hovered near 8% or higher.

·      The economy is just not adding enough jobs. If the economy consistently added as many jobs as it did in October, it would take 7 more years for the unemployment rate to reach 4.4%, the lowest mark under the Bush Administration.

·      President Obama has centered his first term around massive, unaffordable efforts that have driven the nation deeper into debt and done little to put Americans back work.

o   After four straight years of deficits in excess of $1 trillion, the unemployment rate sits right where it was when the president took office.

o   The administration’s massive stimulus-spending package provided an unfortunate example. The nearly $1 trillion package drove our economy deeper into debt. Now, almost four years later, our economy is growing at anemic levels and millions of Americans remain out of work.

·      Beyond unemployment, Washington’s fiscal irresponsibility is hurting American families in other ways.

o   A record 46.7 million Americans are on food stamps.

o   College tuition is up 25%.

o   Gas prices are up 100%.

·      All this plays into one of our economy’s greatest challenges: uncertainty. Policies coming out of Washington make it far too difficult for businesses and the American people to plan ahead.

o   Unsure of what taxes, spending, and regulation will look like, businesses are unwilling to expand, invest, and hire.

o   Excessive and unnecessary federal regulations discourage businesses from investing and hiring new workers.

o   A recent poll of small businesses and manufacturers showed that “two of the biggest challenges facing small business owners and manufacturers are government spending and federal, state, and local taxes.”

·      When will Washington face the facts? Putting millions of Americans back to work cannot happen on the back of government spending. Until Washington makes real spending cuts, the economy will continue to struggle.

·      It’s time for Washington to stop holding back a recovery. Hardworking taxpayers will be the foundation for economic growth, not government.

·      The focus has shifted away from creating growth by encouraging businesses to invest and entrepreneurs to take risks to a world where the government is more active than it can afford to be or that Americans want it to be.

·      Americans are ready for an honest conversation on our country’s biggest problems. These aren’t Republican or Democrat problems. They’re American problems. It’s time for Washington to set aside the partisan rhetoric and crony politics and start working for us.

·      We deserve better. We deserve bold, competent leadership that insists on decisive action and real solutions.

October unemployment, a closer look:

• The real unemployment rate was 14.6%.  This includes the underemployed and those who have given up looking for work.
• 23 million Americans are still looking for work. In January 2009, that figure was 22 million.
• Two out of five Americans looking for work have been out of work for more than six months.
• 3.6 million Americans have been out of work for a year and are still looking for work.
• 813,000 Americans have stopped looking for work
• In January 2009, the average amount of time spent unemployed was 19.8 weeks. Today, the amount of time has doubled, rising to 40.2 weeks from 39.8 weeks last month, the highest since December 2011.
• Nearly one in six Americans are living in poverty, the most its been in two decades.

Conclusion: Ditto the Opening Summary: The Economy Sucks and Remains Stuck under the Obama administration!

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