Freedom Line Blog

On the heels of Friday’s unsettling jobs report from the Labor Department, we can now judge the performance and promises of Joe Biden and the Pelosi/Schumer Congress against actual reality.  They promised 10.3 million jobs would be created in 2021 if their massive spending and regulation blowout passed, versus 6.3 million jobs if their agenda wasn’t passed.  So how did it turn out?  Their agenda was passed, but only 6.1 million jobs were created as the U.S. economy slowed and struggled to recover from the Covid dip, as AEI’s Matt Weidinger highlights.  They apparently made things worse, not better, illustrating the sardonic adage, “Don’t just do something – stand there.”

Biden Jobs Performance: Worse Than Doing Nothing

This morning brought yet another disappointing monthly jobs report from the Labor Department.  While the Biden Administration continues to blindly insist that potential employees sitting on the sidelines because of cushy government unemployment payouts aren’t the problem, the people who actually hire people in order to continue their operations seem to recognize a different story.  Over 9 in 10 say that worker shortages are weighing them down – far and away their biggest problem.  We know the workers are out there, but they’re not taking the available jobs.

Tomorrow the latest jobs report will be announced by the Labor Department.  Tonight President Barack Obama will accept his party’s (re)nomination for President of the United States.  The Wall Street Journal says that sometime before he delivers his acceptance speech he will know what the numbers say.

This could prompt a side-game for political junkies:

Assuming the president gets a briefing on Thursday before his speech, what might he do with it? He isn’t exactly getting on stage, for one of the most important speeches of his career, to recite Labor Department data. But he conceivably could tweak his adjectives in describing the economy if the employment report is a surprise in either direction. Good luck trying to figure that out while you’re watching.

But don’t let that stop you from trying!

Today’s jobs report from the Labor Department shows that unemployment has now exceeded 8% for 35 consecutive months, the most since the federal government began keeping records.

The reason that 8% number is important is that the Obama Administration promised in January 2009 that unemployment would not exceed it under his $1 trillion spending “stimulus.”  They also projected that unemployment would peak in October of that year, and be down to approximately 6% today.  Instead, the jobless rate ascended past 10%, and has never come in below 8% since.  Moreover, the incremental decrease from November’s 8.7% rate was due to a decline in the size of the nation’s workforce.  Further, the 200,000 jobs added is barely sufficient to tread water with population growth.

By this point in our cyclical recovery, employment growth should be much stronger, and unemployment much lower.  To compare alternative economic strategies, Ronald Regan dealt with even higher unemployment than has Obama (not to mention far higher inflation and interest rates back then).  But Reagan’s tax-cutting and smaller-government policies slashed unemployment from 10.4% on the effective date of his tax cuts to 7.0% in the same 35-month span Obama has had.  The answer to the Obama jobs freeze is clear.  It’s simply up to the American electorate to demand it.

So much for attempt number two on the “Recovery Summer” that the Obama Administration promised one year ago.

Today, the Labor Department announced that weekly initial unemployment claims jumped to 429,000, an increase of 9,000 from last week’s 420,000.  Even more ominously, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke explained yesterday that the Fed has already done all it is prepared to do to increase growth, and expressed the same sort of cluelessness as Obama on why their “stimulus” has failed:

We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting.”

The Fed also issued “fairly significant” reductions in its 2011 growth forecast to 2.9% next year (down from a 3.3% growth expectation in April, and from 3.9% in January).  Another “Recovery Summer” like this, and Obama will be borrowing Jimmy Carter’s sweater for his own “Malaise Speech.”

This morning, the Labor Department announced that the U.S. unemployment rate climbed again to 9.1% this month, up from 9.0% in April.  Just as alarmingly, the net number of jobs created was only 54,000, down from 232,000 in April.  In addition to deteriorating from the previous month, both numbers fell well below the expectations of economists, who had anticipated a decline in the unemployment rate to 8.9%, and 160,000 net new jobs.  This also means that in the 27 months since Obama signed his unprecedented government spending “stimulus,” unemployment has only climbed from 8.2% to 9.1%, even though the Administration projected that he would have it down to 6.5% by now.  By way of comparison, in the same 27 months following the effective date of President Reagan’s tax cuts in January 1983, unemployment plummeted from 10.4% to 7.3%.  The facts speak volumes.

This morning, the Labor Department announced that first-time unemployment claims rose again, from 414,000 last week to 424,000 this week.

As demonstrated by this Labor Department graph, weekly unemployment claims average approximately 300,000 during periods of economic normalcy.  One year ago, the number stood at 463,000 when the Obama Administration proclaimed the arrival of the “Recovery Summer,” yet it never dipped below 400,000 for the remainder of 2010.  We finally dipped into the high 300,000 range in February of this year – still an elevated level – but the number climbed back to 478,000 last month.

This is the Obama “stimulus,” over two years and $1 trillion of government spending later.

In its monthly report this morning, the Labor Department announced that unemployment has now remained at or above 9% for a post-World War II record 21st consecutive month.  Additionally, it reported just 36,000 new jobs, well short of the expected 140,000 number.

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, these numbers contrast the results of a big government agenda versus a free market agenda.  In the 23 months since Obama’s massive $1 trillion “stimulus” passage, unemployment has increased from 8.2% to 9%.  One would expect better results in exchange for deficits of $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010 and an expected record $1.5 trillion this year.  Keep in mind that Obama projected that if we followed his big government agenda, unemployment would be down between 6% – 7% by now.  In contrast, the 23 months following the effective date of Reagan’s tax cuts in January 1983 saw unemployment plummet from 10.4% to 7.2%.

The facts speak for themselves.  Inexplicably, Obama nevertheless called for even more federal “stimulus” in his State of the Union address.  As we celebrate the Gipper’s 100th birthday, we should remember the timeless lesson taught by his freedom agenda’s success.

This morning, the Labor Department announced a national unemployment rate of 9.4%.  Unfortunately, this means that the unemployment rate has surpassed 9% for a post-World War II record 20 consecutive months.  Moreover, the announcement of just 103,000 new jobs fell well short of the anticipated gain of 150,000 new jobs.

The Obama Administration will trumpet the misleading 0.4% decline from last month’s 9.8% rate as evidence that its agenda is somehow succeeding.  That claim, however, conceals the fact that the rate had already dropped from January 2010’s 9.7% rate to 9.5% in June, only to climb back to 9.8% to finish the year.  Further, this is the same Obama Administration that promised unemployment would peak at 8% in October 2009 – fourteen months ago – and be down to 7% by now if we just passed his so-called “stimulus” bill back in February 2009.  Almost $1 trillion in deficit spending and two years later, the verdict is clear.  It has failed miserably.

It’s something to remember as the Obama Administration attempts to “triangulate” and claim successful governance as we steam toward the 2012 reelection campaign.

Moments ago, the Labor Department announced that the nation’s unemployment rate, which had stagnated at 9.6% for three consecutive months, actually rose to 9.8%.

Alarmingly, this means that unemployment has now stood above 9% for 19 consecutive months, a post-World War II record.  Analysts had predicted 150,000 new jobs for October, but it turned out that only 39,000 were added, far below the number necessary to reduce the unemployment rate.

No American should take pleasure in others’ blight, but we simply must face the fact that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Keynesian economic agenda has failed, and a course correction is critical.  In the 20 months since Obama signed the budget-busting $1 trillion “stimulus,” unemployment has only risen from 8.4% to 9.8%.  In contrast, in the 20 months following the effective date of the Reagan tax cuts, unemployment plummeted from 10.4% to 7.3%.  The facts speak for themselves.  It’s time for remedial free market action.

According to the Department of Labor, the cost of living in America is humming along at an affordable rate, so long as increases in the price of food and energy are ignored.  You read that right: food and energy.  If there is a third category that every American uses more on a daily basis, let me know.  Ignoring the continuing increases in the costs of food and energy to claim the economy isn’t worsening for everyday Americans is like calculating unemployment to exclude people who don’t have a job and stopped looking.  Oh, wait…

For months, Barack Obama has promised to turn his focus toward job creation, but instead obsessed over destructive agenda items like ObamaCare and alienating our international allies like Israel and Britain.  Meanwhile, unemployment festers at approximately 10% despite Obama’s promises over a year ago that it would not exceed 7.8% under his borrow-and-spend “stimulus” program.

So what is the Obama Administration doing now to address American jobs?

Encourage more legal action against employers.

Obama’s Labor Department Secretary Hilda Solis announced last week its “We Can Help!” program, which encourages employees to pursue legal claims against their employers.  This program promises “the use of Spanish/English bilingual public service announcements — featuring activist Dolores Huerta and actors Jimmy Smits and Esai Morales” in order to “address such topics as rights in the workplace and how to file a complaint with the Wage and Hour Division.”

Yes, just the thing to reduce burdens on strapped employers and encourage job creation – more litigation and bureaucratic persecution of private businesses.  Never mind that swarms of ambulance-chasing litigators stand ready to wrench nuisance dollars from employers via litigation – the Obama Administration seems to believe that the pressing issue in our employment picture is not enough employer prosecution.  This program will merely divert employers’ resources toward litigating these cases, taking even more money away from the job creation that our economy needs so desperately.