The unemployment rate is now back up to 9%. Well, 9% is the official number, we all know it’s much worse than that. But to the experts it was still unexpected news.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
“However, the unemployment rate—which is obtained from a separate household survey—rose to 9.0% last month from 8.8% in March. It was the first increase in the jobless rate since November, when it hit 9.8%.
The mixed data weren’t what analysts expected. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast payrolls would rise by 185,000 and that the jobless rate would remain unchanged at 8.8%.
Even though the economy started growing almost two years ago, the pace has been too slow to make up for ground lost during the recession of 2008 and the first half of 2009. The economy has added some 1.5 million jobs over the past year, but there are still seven million fewer jobs than the U.S. had before the downturn. A slowdown in growth in the first quarter is expected to keep companies from ramping up hiring in future months.”
In addition to that bad news, the growth of wages is nowhere near the increase in the cost of gas, food and other essentials.
The Washington Post put a slightly rosier spin on it.
Update: Nancy Pelosi thinks this is good news. Gateway Pundit puts it into perspective:
The unemployment rate jumped last month from 8.8% to 9.0%. Barack Obama is the worst jobs president since the Great Depression. One in four new jobs last month was created at McDonald’s.
Imagine if 1 in 4 jobs created during the Bush years were at McDonald’s!
Tags: good news, Nancy Pelosi, unemployment, unexpected
Have no fear. Any day now, Vice President Bite Me will announce “Recovery Summer II” and that we just need to spend more money and everything will be better.
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If gas prices continue to rise (not sure after yesterday’s crude crash), don’t be surprised if “official” unemployment goess over 10%.
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Phyllis Schlafly has a great analysis of the problem – on
eagleforum.org
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I have been treading water, barely, for all of these months. The inflation that doesn’t exist has eliminated any breathing room I had (gasoline, groceries, utilities, increased deductibles and co-pays to my insurance thanks to all that “improvement. It is neither possible for me to save money or spend it on anything but those basic things to survive. I drive nowhere except work and back, and it is now costing me a lot of money just to work. I have not received a raise of any kind in 4 yeras—despite working for an individual, wealthy, “compassionate, progressive liberal.” Ironic, hey?
I have looked at everything from many angles and determined that if this administration is re-elected, I will not be able to keep my house and etc. I am busy working on the default plan—how to do that in the way that will provide for me the best, for the longest period of time. “Honor” will have to go out the window, as these people deny and cannot even grasp what is happening to the country. There is no recovery. We are still spiraling downward out here in the real world. Their plans are inherently flawed. So while I hope for a change in administration, I will plan for the utter destruction if there is not one.
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They’re wiping out the middle class, and the poor. And they expect us to believe our hardships are due to the fact that there are still some wealthy people left.
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[...] Unemployment Back Up to 9% – Update – Nancy Pelosi Calls it Good News [...]
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In all the TV chatter they ALWAYS cite the new jobs, but never say anything about 470,000 new unemployment claims. Schlafly says “Reporters say company executives are very squeamish about revealing or talking about how many of their workers are overseas.” Gee, I wonder why. Far as I can tell, what is called ‘Free Trade’ is nothing but Insider Trade. The guy from The Atlantic on cspan this morning says economists believe in this ‘free trade’ – how do you have free trade with a communist dictatorship where 13 year old girls get 25 bucks for a 6 day week and they make ALL your consumer electronics ? Not to mention that they play with their currency exchange rates ? Does this intrepid economics reporter ask any such questions – hell no. For that matter, does Rush ? The one thing Ross Perot was right about was that giant sucking sound – that was a long time ago. Now you have people asking -when are the jobs coming back ? Somebody better do a reality check. Somebody better ask who put these idiotic policies in place, and what on earth are we going to do – realistically. This is just a new kind of Road to Serfdom.
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The AP report in this morning’s paper made this sound like the best economic news in 100 years. They are incredibly obvious in their bias.
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My paper noted on the front page “Job growth a nice surprise”.
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