Obama Economy Has Made DC The Best City Look For A Job
Conn Carroll /
TechCrunch reports today:
The unemployment rate in the U.S. was still 9.4 percent in July, but some cities are better than others to look for a job. Of the top 50 metro areas, Washington, D.C., is the easiest for unemployed workers to find a job … The index ranks cities based on how many unemployed people there are compared to job listings. For every one unemployed person in Washington, D.C., for example, there are six job postings. Whereas in Detroit, there is only one job posting for every 18 unemployed people.
This is not news for conservatives. We reported last month:
Michigan’s Bureau of Labor Market Information announced that their state’s unemployment rate spiked in June, hitting 15.2%, the highest rate since mid-1983. Five other states, Rhode Island (12.4%), Oregon (12.2%), South Carolina (12.1%), Nevada (12%), and California (11.6%) all have either matched or surpassed their all time unemployment highs. Nationwide, a total of fifteen states are now suffering from 10% unemployment. The Federal Reserve predicts that double digit unemployment will envelope most of the country later this year.
But despite the weakness of the economy nationwide, one region in the country is doing much better. Compared to the national 9.5% unemployment average, at 6.2%, the unemployment rate in the Washington, D.C. metro region is lower than any other major metropolitan area in the country. And there is no secret about the source of D.C.’s economic strength: the rest of the country’s tax dollars are being siphoned through the rapidly-expanding federal government. Fifteen cents of every dollar the federal government doles out throughout the world is spent in the Washington area. Last year alone, the federal government poured $133 billion into the area, making the federal government the source for about one-third of Washington’s $401 billion economy.
And, of course, the size of the federal government is exploding under President Barack Obama. According to the Partnership for Public Service, the federal workforce, currently at 1.9 million, is expected to grow to about 2.1 million during the Obama administration. That is comparable to the staffing level during the Johnson administration’s Great Society programs of the 1960s. And that does not even include the boon in industries that feed off of the trillions of dollars pumping through the federal government. Lawyers, lobbyists, and accountants have all been huge winners in the Obama economy.