President Barack Obama made history again today, as today’s new Labor Department report shows zero net jobs created for August. CNBC notes this makes “the first time since World War II that the economy had net zero jobs created for a month.” Thank you, Obama voters! We couldn’t have done this without you.
Of course, this is “unexpected” to the usual unexpecting types:
Economists had been expecting the report to show a net of 75,000 jobs created, an unusually low number considering the US is technically more than two years removed from the end of the last recession.
Stocks sold off sharply following the report, while bond prices rose and the US dollar fell nearly 2 percent against the Swiss franc.
Markets had been closely watching the August report in hopes that the employment picture would begin to show signs of recovery.
It’s absolutely adorable to hear anyone still talking about a “recovery.”
Private payrolls actually rose 17,000, but that was offset by continued shrinkage in government. The number of people unemployed remained unchanged at 14 million.
You mean when the government hires a crapload of people it doesn’t really need, at tremendous expense, their jobs eventually disappear? Who could have seen that coming?
The Associated Press reports that “a strike by 45,000 Verizon workers lowered the job totals. Those workers are now back on the job.” That still wouldn’t get us anywhere near the already pathetic 75,000 jobs anticipated by the “experts.” Did they somehow not know about the Verizon strike? It was in all the papers.
Remember, anything less than about 250,000 net jobs added is not true “growth,” because it’s not enough to keep pace with population growth. Throw those Verizon union guys back into the picture, and we’re still 205,000 jobs further in the hole after last month.
Jim Pethokoukis of Reuters notes via Twitter, “11.4 percent: That would be the U-3 unemployment rate if labor force was as big as when Obama took office.” What he means is that the widely reported U-3 unemployment metric, currently standing at 9.1%, discounts people who have stopped looking for work altogether, to make the government look better. It’s basically the unemployment rate among people who are still trying to get jobs. Obama has blasted so many people out of the workforce that this carefully massaged number is actually 2.3% lower than it should be.
This is a big day for Jimmy Carter. He never managed to bring job creation to a complete halt. He can now go down in history as the President who was almost as bad as Barack Hussein Obama.
Update: Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) released a tough statement in the wake of the August jobs report, and makes an excellent point about today's dismal reality versus Obama's past promises:
An unchanged 9.1 percent unemployment rate is another reminder that too many Americans are paying the price for Washington’s poor judgment,” Congressman Huelskamp said. “The nearly 14 million Americans who are out of work, and another 11 million who are underemployed, find themselves in this position because many employers are rightfully nervous about expanding their businesses. With the uncertainty created by the Obama Administration, how can job creators invest in more employees?”
When the President addresses a Joint Session of Congress next Thursday, America needs to hear a dramatic change of course. President Obama needs to reject his tired and tried liberal policies: tax, spend, regulate, borrow, and bail out. His stimulus plan promised that unemployment would never drop below 8 percent, yet the last time America experienced such was before the stimulus became law. And, while Mr. Obama has settled for high unemployment for at least another two years, that is not good enough.
