The Department of Labor announced today the economy shed another 190 thousand jobs in October, pushing the unemployment rate to 10.2 percent and the running Obama jobs deficit to 5.7 million. Earlier in the week the Obama Administration released figures purporting to show the Obama stimulus had saved or created 640,000 thousand jobs. Only in Washington can jobs be saved by the thousands while being lost by the millions.
So far in his term in office, employment has dropped by about 3.5 million jobs, yet Obama repeatedly promised he would create 3.5 million jobs if only we would elect him President and give him control over the nation’s economic policies beginning with the enactment of a massive economic stimulus package. The President’s jobs promise means total employment should be at least 138.6 million by 2010, leaving him with a total deficit to close between now and December of 2010 of 7.7 million jobs. By his own standard, these results attest that Obama’s policies are failing.
Fortunately, the economy’s natural recuperative powers spurred by powerful, effective stimulus from the Federal Reserve mean the recession may be ending in the sense that overall output and incomes are stabilizing and the recovery may be on the horizon. Last week’s report that the economy grew at 3.5 percent at an annualized rate was certainly good news, though efforts by the Obama Administration to spin this as suggesting the stimulus legislation was working were nonsensical.
Even assuming the recovery is finally at hand, however, job losses are likely to continue for many months, and even Christina Romer, Obama’s Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, admits the unemployment rate is “unlikely to end 2010 much below” the current level of 10 percent.
If Chairman Romer’s predictions prove accurate, and they’re likely more than a little optimistic, all we may have to show for President Obama’s 3.5 million jobs creation promise is another $787 billion in national debt.
