Job slowdown vacuums joy from White House
Lewis DiuguidHear that sucking sound? That’s the joy being vacuumed from the White House today as the new jobless rate was announced.
Employers added only 115,000 new workers last month, according to the Labor Department. That compared 120,000 new jobs in March, which was down from more than 200,000 in each of the previous three months.
Instead of champagne, President Barack Obama and others in his administration may be sharing sips on one flat beer.
The unemployment rate went down to just 8.1 percent from 8.2 percent in March and 8.3 percent in February. The latest drop is attributed to more workers just giving up on their long efforts to find a job.
Clearly diminishing returns are setting in, and that has to worry the Obama administration. No incumbent president has ever won re-election when unemployment was above 7.2 percent.
The best Obama could hope for with the current rate of decline is for the jobless number to be 7.6 percent by Election Day. That clearly is wishful thinking with a double-dip recession and double-digit unemployment numbers spreading like the flu through European nations.
It won’t be long before that mess hits the U.S., and the outcome won’t be pretty.
George Hunsucker
Northland
1 year agoAs I have said MANY TIMES, what businessperson in their right mind would expand a business now? You have 0’care staring you in the face, you have one of the more anti-business administrations ever and you have their henchmen, the EPA, writing new regulations to further stifle your ability as a business to make a profit.
If I were unemployed, I would become “discouraged” too at the big 0 and his merry band of Chicago academics who have never ran a business!
George Hunsucker
Northland
1 year agoSounds like a good one to me chazzy…
“Vote Democratic and Become Unemployed”
Hopefully come Nov. 6 a great majority of thinking Americans will vote with their brain this time vs. “hope and change”….
Mark Hastert
1 year agoYou all overlooked the real good news. Private sector employment is above pre-recession levels! It’s the state & local government employment that has decreased dramatically since the stimulus expired. Further support for that sector would have unemployment below 7% and a stronger the recovery but the myth of austerity has damaged our recovery just as it has in Europe sending them into a double dip.
so look on the bright side!