Freedom Line Blog

The nation’s unemployment rate dipped slightly last month, and Barack Obama predictably trumpeted this seemingly-postitive “trend.”

Unfortunately, we can’t pop the champagne corks just yet.

A one-month decline isn’t a “trend” (the unemployment rate has dipped slightly in recent months only to resume its increase, and remains high), and the longer-term prospect of improvement under current leadership is troubling.  As noted by The Wall Street Journal’s Mark Gongloff, the nation still shed 125,000 jobs last month.  Additionally, the portion of unemployed Americans on permanent layoff reached an all-time high of 55.1%, a record 9.3 million remain underemployed, over one million have abandoned the workforce altogether and employers “show little inclination to rehire, even though the recession has supposedly been over for five months now.”

The bottom line is that unlike previous recessions, there is a much dimmer light at the end of the tunnel due to the ominous prospect of new healthcare burdens, skyrocketing deficits, a weakened dollar, draconian carbon cap-and-tax burdens, tax increases, more federal regulations and bald negation of common-law contract rights by the government.  Until Obama, Reid and Pelosi smell the coffee and recognize the gloom that they’re casting over the nation’s economy and employment picture, the prospect of dramatic rebound remains thin.