The government unemployment report that the economy lost another 95,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.6 percent in September is a disaster for the Obama/Democrats.
The government’s broader measure of unemployment, sometimes referred to “true unemploytment,” now stands at 17.1 percent. As the Washington Post’s Frank Ahrens puts it, you are not included in the “official” unemployment rate if, a) you would like to have a full-time job but can find only part-time work, and b) if you’ve grown so discouraged at finding work, you’ve simply given up:
If you include all of these people into the number — all of the people who should be working full time but are not — the truer U.S. unemployment rate is a much higher 16.8 percent.
The higher, more inclusive, unemployment number is buried in the government’s monthly report as “U6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force” in “Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization.” Unlike the “official” unemployment rate, the U6 number includes both marginal and part-time workers as the “true” or “real” unemployment level.
This is once again a good time to recall President Obama’s promises about his boondoggle stimulus package:
- When pushing for passage of his $800 billion so-called stimulus package, President Obama proposed five different goals over eight weeks for his boondoggle and finally settled on a claim that his bailout would create three to four million jobs.
- Team Obama used scare tactics to get the Democrat-controlled Congress to give him the massive spending bill dressed up as a stimulus. They assured us that without Obama’s bailout the unemployment rate would reach 9 percent, but if Congress passed his boondoggle, unemployment would peak at 8 percent.
The unemployment rate scare tactic was contained in Obama’s “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” At Innocent Bystanders, Geoff, has plotted the actual unemployment rates on Obama’s prediction chart. Where are the jobs?
As we all unfortunately know, despite Team Obama’s assurances unemployment not only surpassed 8 and 9 percent, it actually broke 10 percent.
When will Obama admit that his misguided tax, spend and borrow policies have not done the job and are epic failures? We may have so far avoided a double dip recession under Obama. But sadly, in less than two years, we have now seen true unemployment rise above 17 percent three times during Obama’s presidency.
Also posted at Right Side Politics.