Jobless rate becomes Obama’s new reality
AnalysisAction to tackle nation’s budget deficits will have to wait
BY JIM KUHNHENN
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Published: November 7, 2009
WASHINGTON — For months he had warned it was coming but that didn’t ease the political shockwaves for President Barack Obama when unemployment topped 10 percent.
A year after his election Obama finds it increasingly difficult to blame the sour economy on
George W. Bush or offer reassurances that jobless Americans will soon find work.
Never mind that the economy itself grew in the last quarter, that the recession by most accounts is over and that the number of jobs lost in October was less than one-third the number of job losses at the start of his presidency.
At 10.2 percent, the October unemployment climbed to chart-topping heights unseen in more than a quarter century. The bottom line is that more than 15 million Americans are out of work and 3.5 million lost their jobs while Obama was president. Expected or not, this is Obama’s new reality.
"I won’t let up until the Americans who want to find work can find work, and until all Americans can earn enough to raise their families and keep their businesses open,” Obama said.
That’s a hopeful promise but not very realistic.
And it shows that, for the time being, action to tackle record budget deficits will have to wait.
Obama, appearing at the
White House Rose Garden on Friday three hours after the jobless numbers were made public, said his administration was looking at additional spending for roads and bridges and energy-efficient buildings. Additional tax cuts for businesses and steps to increase credit for small businesses were also on the bill.
The new unemployment rate also came on the same day Obama signed a $24 billion bill to extend jobless benefits and spur home buying.
In a sign of Democratic thinking,
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who heads Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, said Democrats would consider new aid to states an "infrastructure bank” to increase construction jobs and small-business tax credits.
"I think we’re witnessing a political renaissance about concerns about jobs,” said
Lawrence Mishel, president of the
Economic Policy Institute. "It will put the deficit concerns into their appropriate context.”
Related Topics:
U.S. Government,
Domestic Policy,
Political Policy,
Politics,
Business,
Economic Indicators,
Economic Policy,
Jobs and Labor,
Labor Market,
Unemployment Rate,
Layoffs and Downsizing,
Small Business,
Job Losses
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-- Thomas Jefferson /Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)