This morning brings actual . . . kinda, sorta, almost good news on the economy. The unemployment rate is 10 percent, down from 10.2 percent last month; the number of unemployed actually grew, but by 11,000, which is much smaller than the usual six-figure numbers we’ve had this year and much of last. Perhaps we’ve hit bottom.
However, if you hear any fool on the left contending that the Obama administration can be credited with turning the economy around, the BLS release gives us a lot of reasons to point out that our economy has steadily deteriorated during this year: “Last month, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 293,000 to 5.9 million. The percentage of unemployed persons jobless for 27 weeks or more increased by 2.7 percentage points to 38.3 percent.”
Also note that ”construction employment declined by 27,000 over the month.” Every month since the stimulus passed, employment in the construction field has dropped, confirming the president’s admission that the “shovel ready” slogan of the stimulus package was bunk.