Obama is banking on “low-information” voters to look at just the unemployment rate dropping to 8.1%. The troubling news is just 96,000 new jobs were created in August when most experts believed over 140K would be created.
Manufacturing jobs lost shed 15K last month. 368K people dropped out of the workforce. These are terrible numbers, plain and simple. Obama said it best last night, America is a nation of dreamers……so true. Today,the American workforce participation rate is at 1981 levels. The way D.C. calculates unemployment, if we all lost our jobs and unemployment benefits ran out, the nation would be at full employment. Think about that. Many say the real unemployment is somewhere around 14%.
Right here in Massachusetts, we have seen a 87% increase in food stamp assistance from 07-11. “Together We Can” continue on the same course and vote for “Hope” and cross your fingers, or take a new path with Romney/Ryan.
Not surprising that there isn’t a huge jump in jobs in August, but we are still making slow but steady progress. We are *much* better off than 4 years ago, but it may require some more stimulus to increase job growth at a faster rate.
Romney/Ryan don’t actually have a plan that would create jobs, so I don’t know why you think it is a good idea to harp on the job numbers in any case.
that lost hundreds of thousands of job a month instead.
Your arrogance offends me. This is what you consider progress? Obama’s preacher tone last night was nauseating, and his flock at the convention waiting for miracles was equally off-putting. Go ahead, stick your finger in the eyes of those suffering in this economy and yawn in their face. But they will have the final call. Do they want a job or a disability check. Choice is theirs.
“The national unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 per cent, down from 8.2 per cent, but this was only because so many people gave up looking for work. If the participation rate had not dropped so precipitously, unemployment would have risen to 8.4 per cent.
Factory employment fell by the most in two years and temporary-help companies eliminated positions for the first time in five months. The 69.9 per cent labor force participation rate for men is at lowest level recorded since the US government began tracking it in 1948.
According to James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, the unemployment rate would be 11.4 per cent if the labour force participation rate had remained what is was when Obama took office.”
the 4.6 million people who have jobs that were created under the Obama administration. Today’s numbers are not spectacular, but they’re a lot better than the net *loss* of 84,000 jobs that we saw exactly four years ago.
I’m sure they’ll get some time off from their jobs at Burger King to vote.
The yawn wasn’t for the unemployed but for yet another boring, uninformative, and pointless troll post from (not)dan(not)fromwaltham.
It is perfectly clear that you don’t care one bit about the plight of the unemployed, and it is equally clear that it is not my so-called “arrogance” that offends you, but that I dare to call you out on your nonsense. You have yet to learn the lesson that you no one will take you seriously when you reek of insincerity.
I notice your total and complete silence on what exactly Romney and Ryan would do to create jobs. And aren’t you the guy advocating a 20% across the board spending cuts? What do you think that would do to jobs?
I know we work very hard trying to position each other to bolster our positions… but as a conservative Republican I do not want unemployment to be high as I want people working, getting paid and enjoying life. I do not want people to be hungry, I don’t want people living in the streets, and I want people to be healthy. I want equal rights for everyone regardless of race, religion, gender…
I think you are being pretty vindictive to assert that Dan is happy about people being unemployed and not caring about them. Those unemployed people are all Americans, many of them are Republicans, of course we care.
And neither Obama or Romney have given sufficient details as to how they will put Americans back to work, at least in my opinion. I haven’t heard the answer from anyone, them, people here or any economist.
Not raising taxes will not fix the problem, nor will raising taxes!
but I do not remotely believe that Dan cares. He consistently has displayed nothing but crocodile tears and hasn’t shown any evidence that he truly cares about anyone other than himself.
How does that help the unemployed? How does that create jobs?
Ok this may sound CRAZY but what if…
You gave every city and town in the country $4M to spend on capital projects (buildings, roads, bridges, dams…) as long as it was spent in one year. Give everyone waivers for EPA, DEP, Army Corps of Engineers, Conservation Commission… permits and get lots of people back to work right away not only doing the labor but providing the raw materials. MA has 351 cities and towns so MA would cost $1.4B (351 times $4M) and we a re a very typical state (312,000,000 people divided by 50 states equals 6.2M people and MA has 6.587M people). So multiply the $1.4B times 50 and you get $70B. For $70B you would employ a lot of people and get our economy started. I’m not saying this will fix things but it would be a great start and it would target mostly low to middle income earners.
Just a thought…
… had infrastructure spending. The big thing is though, he also had some tax hikes to pay for it so it got rejected.
Not the republicans fault – remember who controlled the house and the senate ?
http://www.economist.com/node/17311851
The bill was primarily a pay off to Obama supporters. The little infrastructure spending was paving. A friend of my in the asphalt business said they were repaving roads that didn’t need it.
Private and Public commercial construction has suffered the most in the downturn of any industry – the money would have been well spent on infrastructure.
…. cut up into separate proposals afterword as a legislative strategy. The original proposal had about $50 billion in infrastructure spending and also sought to establish an infrastructure bank.
Not the original bill that passed.
The infrastructure bank – is a really bad idea – it means states won’t have the discipline of the bond markets – the will depend on the federal government for financing.
… link refers exactly to what I was talking about. Again, the infrastructure spending is in the proposal – even your own source says so.
I’m discussing the bill that passed in 2009 – you are discussing the proposed bill
In the way of construction spending this bill had about 7.2B – excluding water projects etc.
n/t