Unemployment Hits 10.2%
[Guest post by DRJ]
Unemployment was 9.8% in September. October 2009 unemployment is 10.2%:
“Nearly 16 million people can’t find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended. The Labor Department said Friday that the economy shed a net total of 190,000 jobs in October, less than the downwardly revised 219,000 lost in September. August job losses were also revised lower, to 154,000 from 201,000.
But the loss of jobs last month exceeded economists’ estimates. It’s the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, the longest on records dating back 70 years.
Counting those who have settled for part-time jobs or stopped looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 17.5 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.”
In more bad news, the average work week stayed at 33 hours — “a disappointment because employers are expected to add more hours for current workers before they begin hiring new ones.”
— DRJ
From now on, all reports on the unemployment numbers must include the following:
“Instead of being so negative, you should grab a mop and help Obama clean up the mess Bush left him.”
Because Obama was only a senator for 4 years (and Biden forever) he bears no responsibility for anything.
MU789 (897b57) — 11/6/2009 @ 6:15 amI blame Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh.
JD (6dce29) — 11/6/2009 @ 6:40 amDemocrats have been in charge legislatively for 4 years. And reason why it will keeps going up is fact is people like me don’t want to hire and see no reason to.
We are both scared and angry at this cheap pimp POTUS and his Congressional minions turning this into a giant Welfare State in order to buy elections with handouts and Gov.t Waste of Flesh jobs.
HeavenSent (01a566) — 11/6/2009 @ 6:50 amthat’s so provincial how you act like it’s an American problem. If you read your dirty socialist Associated Press like a Good Citizen like me you’d know that
We are the world and also we are the children I think. Wait. ohnoes. If you look at the countries dirty socialist propaganda hoochie Greg Keller lists you can’t help but notice that all of them … Germany – France – UK – Japan – China – Brazil – all of them have lower unemployment than we do and none of them wasted Trillions on a gay phony stimulus to reward their union thugs and SEIU parasites.
Interesting.
happyfeet (f62c43) — 11/6/2009 @ 6:50 amThis is a laughable line in the article:
> Nearly 16 million people can’t find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended
Well, maybe it has to do with the fact that the “end” of the recession was largely the result of cash for clunkers, which actually destroyed wealth but did give an artificial boost to gdp.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/6/2009 @ 6:51 amPeople, this is FUNemployment we’re talking about.
We should be showing our gratitude to the The One Lightworker.
Techie (482700) — 11/6/2009 @ 6:59 amThis isn’t good, we’ve broken through the 1983 trendline, six monthes early, ‘all is well’
bishop (4e0dda) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:10 amgood thing we didn’t elect that bimbo, eh?
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:11 amCash for clunkers could only have been dreamed up by people ignorant of the broken window fallacy.
A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. . . How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. . .
But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace the window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:15 amA.W. is right the recession is still recessioning I think. If we were coming out of recession they wouldn’t have voted to continue and increase their welfare program for buying houses.
Every Republican Senator voted to rape our little treasury to turn Americans into pathetic dependent peasants.
I don’t want to buy my first house with foodstamps you stupid condescending homopublicans. You want people to think that when you nominated Meghan’s coward daddy it was some kind of fluke. It wasn’t. You’re a bunch of prancing wide-stancer morons I think the whole lot of you. Especially Lindsey, busily trying on new dresses so he looks pretty when Charlie Crist arrives.
happyfeet (f62c43) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:17 amThe only “economists” celebrating the end of the recession either work for the AP or the Democrats.
Dr. K (eca563) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:18 amRedundancy alert
JD (6dce29) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:22 amnone of them wasted Trillions on a gay phony stimulus to reward their union thugs and SEIU parasites.
Especially Lindsey, busily trying on new dresses so he looks pretty when Charlie Crist arrives.
feets, stop it, you’re making me chuck up my coffee this morning! “That’s comedy GOLD, Jerry!”
Dmac (a964d5) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:25 amSpeaking of which, did anyone catch that awful CNN interview with Christ, the recent one where Christ acts like he was on another planet when the stimulus votes were counted?
Dmac (a964d5) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:26 amDmac – It took a spine for a Gov to not want the stimulus dollars, especially the ones with strings attached. Apparently, Crist was not amongst them.
JD (6dce29) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:32 amThe St. Petersburg Times wrote about Crist’s stimulus denial.
Despite his recent claims, evidence shows Crist did support stimulus plan
…He said Wednesday that he didn’t endorse the stimulus package and offered the fact that he didn’t have a vote on the proposal as evidence.
Of course, Crist, as governor, couldn’t vote for the stimulus plan. But, strictly speaking, neither could Obama as president. So that’s hardly a proper measure to justify a claim that Crist didn’t endorse the stimulus bill.
What is a proper measure? Crist’s actions in January and February. Crist broke ranks with many in the Republican Party by publicly campaigning for the stimulus package on TV and with the president. He lobbied Florida’s congressional delegation to vote for the bill. And he signed Florida’s budget, which was balanced because the state received billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. (The stimulus package provides Florida with $15.7 billion over three budget years, ending next budget year.)
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Thursday even acknowledged Crist’s support. “I think his words at that (Fort Myers) event speak for themselves,” Gibbs said. “I think he was very supportive of the legislation and supportive of the benefits that it would have and has had for — for the state of Florida in seeing positive economic growth.”
Facing a primary challenge from the conservative wing of the Republican Party, Crist appears to be trying to rewrite history. But there are mountains of evidence that he not only supported the stimulus, but sang its praises.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:39 amFrom February:
Republicans and other critics, however, have something less than admiration for the $819 billion plan that passed without a single GOP vote last week. They say it is loaded up with pork-barrel projects that will do little to jolt the economy.
Obama, however, said Republicans are peddling the same failed policies that voters rejected and that helped put the country into recession.
To complaints that the bill is being pushed too swiftly, Obama said, “we’re moving quickly not because we want to jam something down people’s throats,” but because it’s necessary to prevent millions more lost jobs.
To worries that the plan will increase the federal deficit, the new president said he found it when he showed up on the job.
To those who say there aren’t enough tax cuts, he said it is well balanced between tax relief and new spending.
And to GOP criticism that the stimulus had turned into a spending plan, he replied, “That’s the point. Seriously, that’s the point.”
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/02/obama_rallies_d.html
Amphipolis (b120ce) — 11/6/2009 @ 7:58 amIt was a poison pill, that some governors tried to extricate themselves from with limited success.Sanford maybe to impress his main squeeze, tried fighting it in the Courts, but they said ‘nee’. Jindal, tried to refuse part of it, but his legislature voted for it, ‘by accident’. The Alaskan legislature voted for it ,when Palin was out of town, in Indiana and she worked out a swap with state funds. Without
bishop (4e0dda) — 11/6/2009 @ 8:07 amthe energy funds, that they eventually overwrote
her veto, on. So ‘were doomed’
As Allahpundit would say, “Nice going, champ.”
Think of it not as unemployment, think of it as a mandatory diet. No money, no food!
Patricia (b05e7f) — 11/6/2009 @ 8:13 amI thought Barcky told us that the stimulus package was so important and had to be passed immediately without having a chance to see what was actually in it, and that the stimulus plan would keep unemployment under 8%.
JD (6dce29) — 11/6/2009 @ 8:18 amWait a minute, 20 comments in and no one has pointed out how many jobs that Dear Leader’s policies have saved? Why, without the stimulus, er stabilization, we would probably have 102% unemployment right now.
JVW (d32e06) — 11/6/2009 @ 8:31 amU6 at 17.5%. Forget the voodoo economics! Time to bring on the neo-hooverism!
imdw (0172f3) — 11/6/2009 @ 8:33 amIn other news, choco rations are going up.
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 11/6/2009 @ 9:04 amEPIC FAIL for Barcky, imdw.
JD (6dce29) — 11/6/2009 @ 9:07 amRemember how the Porkulus Plan was supposed to put money into construction projects that are ready, or nearly ready, to go? Well, if you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report on October unemployment, you’ll find this:
That report doesn’t seem to have a separate url, but you can read it if you click on the .pdf file under the October unemployment story on the linked BLS homepage.
The construction jobs lost were precisely in the areas the stimulus plan money was supposed to go: heavy construction and road construction. Kind of makes you wonder: just where did the money go?
The Dana who looks up these things (474dfc) — 11/6/2009 @ 9:46 amIt’s not an epic fail if they keep moving those goalposts and throw out the occasional “FIRE!” scream in the wan attempt to obfuscate the discussion.
Dmac (a964d5) — 11/6/2009 @ 9:46 amhappyfoots referred to a program which really urinates me off. The “first time homebuyer” isn’t necessarily an actual first time buyer, but simply someone who hasn’t been a homeowner for the past three years.
But think about it. Mortgage lenders have tightened up a lot on making home loans, because so many went bad. To get a mortgage today, you have to have good credit and a dependable income; those are precisely the people who don’t need the help, precisely the people who could buy anyway, and shouldn’t need help paying their mortgages.
This up to $8,000 tax credit was welfare for the well-to-do. I don’t like welfare anyway, but at least I can understand how good people think that the poor ought to be helped; it’s our charitable impulse, doncha know? But welfare for people who don’t need it? Ughhh!
The very annoyed Dana (474dfc) — 11/6/2009 @ 9:53 amBtw, i will say it before, and i will say it again. this is worse than all of the white house’s predictions of how it would be with or without the stimulus. therefore there are only two logical explanations:
1) either they stink at predictions and therefore can’t predict the effects of their policies, or
2) they are making it worse.
take your pick but either way, the best rule then is to step away from the economy and do nothing.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/6/2009 @ 10:05 amBtw, see the chart here:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/87986/
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/6/2009 @ 10:06 amWant to send Obama a message?
Mail him a brown paper bag: give him the sack!
ropelight (db98cc) — 11/6/2009 @ 10:18 amTo get a mortgage today, you have to have good credit and a dependable income; those are precisely the people who don’t need the help, precisely the people who could buy anyway, and shouldn’t need help paying their mortgages.
This up to $8,000 tax credit was welfare for the well-to-do.
What’s even worse is that this program has been rife with fraud; Calculated Risk cited an article from the WSJ on this on October 19 (sorry, the link feature on here is a bit confusing).
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/10/wsj-irs-examining-many-suspicious-first.html
On top of that, how many of these homes are people simply using the credit as their down payment, if the FHA 3.5% mimimum is only met? No wonder the foreclosure/default rate at the FHA is over 22%, and Fannie needs another $18 billion (after losing $100 billion) before it becomes the government’s largest landlord.
Another Chris (2d8013) — 11/6/2009 @ 11:23 amWASHINGTON (AP) — The unemployment rate has hit double digits for the first time since 1983 [2 years into the first term of the deregulated, trickle-down, voodoo-economics presidency of RONALD REAGAN]– – source- AP 11/6/09
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 11/6/2009 @ 12:17 pmIs it safe to ask if there is a village somewhere in Kenya missing an idiot? (Yeah, yeah, I know he was born in Hawaii, but Kenya sounds so mich snarkier.)
Crusader (f17d93) — 11/6/2009 @ 12:29 pmSTFU and get back in the cellar, IMP.
JD (f8b50e) — 11/6/2009 @ 12:30 pmIt was only a matter of time before
AD - RtR/OS! (b8e0ad) — 11/6/2009 @ 12:32 pma Moon-batDuck-Crap showed up to attempt to blame current conditions on Ronald Reagan, who laid the foundation for the longest peace-time expansion of the economy in our nation’s history; and BTW, defeated Soviet Marxism/Communism while doing so.If only we could find another such “Amiable Dunce”!
Construction jobs in porkulus?
BWaaaaaaa….. you mean Gov.t Civil Servant jobs and raises for Civil Servants.
Non-union construction jobs for fly-over country? Get Real.
HeavenSent (01a566) — 11/6/2009 @ 1:02 pm“[September 15, 1981] It was impossible to cut taxes, increase the defense budget, and balance the federal budget by 1984– as he [Reagan] had promised to do. I predicted that we were going to face budget deficts far larger than any in our history. In concluding my comments, I said that, unless these policies succeeded, which I thought unlikely, the feeling would grow over time that President Reagan was ‘an amiable dunce.'” –source, pg. 644, ‘Counsel The President – A Memoir’ by Clark Clifford
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 11/6/2009 @ 1:06 pmDid somebody actually cite ‘Clark Clifford’ as an authority? Who’s next? Jimmy Carter? H. Rap Brown? Barbara Streisand?
Robert N. (9456b3) — 11/6/2009 @ 1:19 pmOnly the personal friend of Von Braun would consider using that incredibly hacky and disgraced former bootlicker of the Brazilian Bank as a credible news source.
Dmac (a964d5) — 11/6/2009 @ 1:45 pm#38- Let’s cite woodshed wonderboy David Stockman for flavoring. “[Reagan’s former budget director David] Stockman devised the first Reagan budget, with its broad tax cuts and big boosts in military spending, and helped move it through Congress over the objections of skeptical Democrats. At the same time, he secretly began giving weekly interviews to Bill Greider, a [Washington] Post editor and an old friend of his. When Greider published an article based on the interviews, called “The Education of David Stockman,” in the Atlantic magazine, all hell broke loose.”
“Stockman told Greider that the Reagan budget was built on false premises, that it employed a “magic asterisk” to conceal the size of its inevitable deficits and that the tax cuts he had championed were really designed to benefit the wealthy. The detailed accounting of the internal battles that produced a budget that would saddle the country with years of debt was a stunning indictment of the very administration in which Stockman was serving.” – source, washingtonpost.com, 3/29/07
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 11/6/2009 @ 1:53 pmThe next thing we know, Duck-Crap will be citing passages from the Reagan-Wyman divorce to attempt to discredit the 40th-President.
A One-Trick Pony, singing “Poor Johnny One-Note“.
Must have been a patient of Dr. Nidal.
AD - RtR/OS! (b8e0ad) — 11/6/2009 @ 2:08 pm“source, washingtonpost.com”
Yeah… I think I can see what the problem is here.
Reagan did not have the power of the purse. Reagan did not believe in huge government. Reagan’s few spending boons were for defense against a truly horrible empire… it was justified and it was actually quite cheap. Int he long run, it led to tremendous prosperity. The democrats spent a hell of a lot of money on domestic CRAP, and blame it on Reagan by trying to be as obtuse and vague as possible.
At the end of the day, Obama said he could fix this mess. Democrats have all the power, and they said they would be able to make everything great. Instead, they made everything worse. They can try projection, inheritance, or other blame games, but they shouldn’t have said they could fix this if they didn’t mean it.
Dustin (bb61e3) — 11/6/2009 @ 2:10 pmDC
Okay, so you think reagan was a terrible president. if we promise not to reelect him which you get off this silly subject?
Seriously, why are you kicking a dead man?
i mean what is your position. more regulation is good for business? are you serious? are you actually on drugs?
and reagan ran up a deficit. well, it took two to tango on that.
And i always love the “benefit the wealthy” canard. 9 times out of 10 what that really means is that the person in question is discriminating less against the wealthy than you want, but still discriminating against them.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/6/2009 @ 2:16 pmAW, no kidding.
The wealthy pay so much more than their share, and anytime an effort is made to make them pay only 95% of the bill instead of 99%, it’s treated like some kind of attempt to rob the poor. What a load of crap… it’s clearly an effort to free the wealthy to invest in ways that benefit the country.
You know, if we went to a flat tax… everyone at the same rate… there would be millions of new jobs and thousands of new businesses and countless new ideas that make life better. This is the CORE of conservatism. the government takes all that away in order to fight all these crises that the government usually made int he first place.
Dustin (bb61e3) — 11/6/2009 @ 2:23 pmi mean what is your position. more regulation is good for business?
DCSCA’s only position is whatever his Democrat slavemasters and Goldman Sachs tell him it is.
He can’t actually develop an argument on the current economic metrics–because if it wasn’t clear before today that the stock market is completely divorced from reality, it sure is now–so he pulls up the Reagan canard as a deflection.
God forbid that Obama put on the Big Boy Pants and admit that he either 1) is responsible for what is going on right now; or 2) he has no control over the economy or its regulatory functions. He’s too stunted emotionally to do the former, and doing the latter gets Bush off the hook by proxy.
As far as regulations go, reinstituting Glass-Steagall along with enforcing the regulations already in place would be wise, but at this point it’s probably in “closing the barn door after the horses have escaped” status. Goldman Sachs owns Obama and Congress, and that ain’t changing anytime soon. Plus, Obama is likely afraid that if he holds the banks to account and makes them put all their trash assets on their books, they’ll crash the economy just to spite him (and they’ve threatened as much in discussing the Fed Audit bill that just got nerfed by Barney Frank).
Another Chris (2d8013) — 11/6/2009 @ 2:56 pmDustin – why is it that so many folk in the US do not realise that the Federal Budget is the responsibility of Congress, not the President ? The Preseident can veto it, but, in the end, he has to sign something to keep the country going …
We are in the mess we are in economically as a result of the past almost-three years of Congress – not because of Bush, and not really because of Obama …
Alasdair (205079) — 11/6/2009 @ 3:00 pmFor those who are unaware of the various duties and powers of the Congress and the Executive branches of our government.
The Constitution of the United States
Article I
Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
Section 9. No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
Article II
Robert N. (9456b3) — 11/6/2009 @ 3:33 pmSection 3. He {the President} shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient
The International Man of Parody is now quoting from BCCCI’s butt boy Clifford?
I continue to be astonished at how the IMP finds new depths to his parody.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/6/2009 @ 3:50 pm[…] the American Apology Tour and the “Stimulus” that ballooned our national debt and killed American jobs? That’s what tweaks MY […]
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