Lower Rate But Fewer Jobs: Project 21’s Derryck Green on Obama’s New Jobless Report

iStock_000005751277XSmallAlbert Einstein is credited with defining insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If today’s unemployment report is any indication, the White House must be like an asylum.  All of that regulation, taxation and spending has done so little to get so many the jobs they need.  People want to work — it’s Obama’s economy that’s stopping them.

Yet another lackluster jobs report was dumped on the American people this morning — 7.6 percent for the month of March.  Obama appears to have successfully broken through the eight percent barrier where the unemployment rate lived for most of his first term, but things were supposed to have been a lot better by now if one was to take the President at his word back when he was a candidate.

Behind the much-publicized unemployment figure, the news gets worse.  For blacks, Obama’s most loyal constituency, the rate fell only slightly to a still above-average 13.3 percent.  For the women he claimed to fight in the alleged conservative war against them, 7.6 percent are still looking for work.  Hispanics?  9.2 percent.  Youth?  24.2 percent.

For Project 21 member Derryck Green, who has provided regular commentary on the monthly jobless report, the state of the economy and what it is doing to the American people, the constant reporting on the doom and gloom created by the Obama Administration is getting monotonous.  Having to analyze virtually the same bad news over and over again is driving him… insane.

P21DerryckGreenDerryck says:

The “successes” of President Obama’s economic recovery continue to pour in.

Unemployment in the month of March was officially 7.6 percent.  But only about 88,000 were created, roughly half of the average monthly job creation over the past year.  The U-6 figure — the one that includes all of the people who are unemployed, underemployed and have given up looking — is a much worse 13.8 percent.

And things aren’t really any better for key demographics in the Obama coalition such as minorities, women and youth.  They are still not seeing real hope or change in their prospect.

In addition to the other perpetually abysmal unemployment numbers released by the Labor Department (89 million Americans are out of the workforce), the Congressional Budget Office projects that America will maintain an unemployment rate between six and seven percent under Barack Obama.

Though Americans were told that the recession ended in 2009, consider the following economic successes of this so-called recovery:

  • Participation of the SNAP program (previously known as food stamps) has increased 70 percent since 2008, with the total number of Americans receiving food stamps was closing in on 50 million people at the end of last year;
  • Jobless claims rose to 357,000 last week, surprising some by jumping up 16,000;
  • The growth of manufacturing has been reduced;
  • Ben Bernake continues quantitative easing, devaluing the worth and purchasing power of the dollar;
  • In only the first two months of 2013, banks wrote off over $3 billion of student loan debt resulting from the increases of delinquencies and defaults stemming from the inability of college graduates to find jobs in Obama’s economic recovery;
  • The number of people living in poverty, according to the Census Bureau, has reached 50 million — the highest it’s been since the 60’s.  20 percent of that number is children.  25 percent of that 50 million are black households and
  • The number of people receiving federal disability reached a new all-time high (until the next report) of 8,853,614.  The number of Americans employed full time is 115,841,000.  This reflects a ratio of 13 working Americans for every person collecting disability.

This is simply the tip of the economic iceberg.  To celebrate the successes of his economic recovery — and in spite of the automatic sequester — President Obama:

  • Closed the White House to public tours;
  • Doled out $1.2 billion more in green energy subsidies this year;
  • Has given Egypt (and, by extension, the radical Muslim Brotherhood) $250 million in “aid”;
  • Spent money to decrease human-elephant conflict;
  • Played golf with Tiger Woods;
  • He or his family took four vacations so far this year;
  • Will hold a “Memphis Soul” concert at the White House this month- again, while it remains closed to the public;
  • Increased the national debt to almost $17 trillion, while at the same time telling George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that “[His] goal is not to chase a balanced budget just for the sake of balance.”

Meanwhile, in an apparent attempt at humor, President Obama declared April “National Financial Capability Month.”  Obama claims that his administration will attempt to help encourage fiscal responsibility to the people.  This claim, as well as his record of economic stewardship, is insulting to the intelligence of many Americans.

Obama also promoted an initiative that would spend — excuse me, “invest” — billions of dollars on “infrastructure programs” in an attempt to create jobs.

I don’t know how Obama does it.  How can one preside over millions of people out of work, the increasing number of people living in poverty and dance around the fact that the economy could be on the verge of contracting in a very big way and still — after five years — not being held responsible.

It’s quite an act.



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