02 Aug 2013 New Jobless Numbers No Reason to Celebrate

It’s the first Friday of the month — time for the government to announce the unemployment figures during the previous month.

For July, the overall unemployment rate fell to an all-time Obama low of 7.4 percent.  Before breaking out the party supplies, the President’s supporters should not forget that this figure is far above where his policies were supposed to put the jobless rate by now.  It’s also possibly so low because there are so many people giving up on looking for a job (the expanded unemployment figure is still up at an alarmingly high 14 percent!).

And the expected shift of more and more jobs from full-time to part-time in an effort by business owners to deal with ObamaCare insurance regulations is continuing.

Project 21 member Derryck Green, as he does every month at this time, comments on the new jobless numbers and the state of the Obama economy:

Americans endured yet another month of a national unemployment rate still well above seven percent.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the official unemployment rate for July of 2013 was 7.4 percent.

The more accurate “U-6” measurement of total unemployment — including those who are jobless, underworked, those who can only find (or are forced into) part-time rather than full time work and those who have given up looking for work altogether clocked in at a devastating 14 percent.  And the number of actual jobs created fell below expectations.

Also, black unemployment is well above 12 percent.  At least, at 12.5 percent, it’s finally below the seemingly-permanent 13 percent barrier.  It’s the major good news of the unemployment report.  Since Obama was elected president, black unemployment was below 13 percent only once before — during the partial month in which he was first inaugurated.

Black teens in particular didn’t fare as well.  Their unemployment rate is still extremely high at 41.6 percent, making it the 30th time that black teen unemployment topped 40 percent since the President’s first month in office.

Adding to the already-grim news on jobs is the fact that more Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.  And four out of five Americans are struggling with economic insecurity characterized by fears and the experience of poverty, joblessness and government dependency.

And how serious is the President in his attempts to reduce the financial strain and economic pessimism of anguished American workers?

He isn’t.

Just this week, President Obama laughingly dismissed the job-creating potential of the Keystone XL pipeline.  Claiming the pipeline would only create between 50 and 100 permanent jobs, he seems to think it isn’t significant enough of a job creator to justify or support its construction.

The idea that the Keystone XL pipeline will create no more than 100 jobs is intentionally misleading at best.  It’s outright lying at worst, and several credible sources dispute the Obama’s claim (including reports from his own staff).

Furthermore, seeing that workforce participation rate is at a 30-year low and the economy has more than 9 million fewer people in the workforce now than it did since Obama took office, any job created in the private sector is a step in the right direction.

In reality, there are credible estimates (from the Obama State Department, no less) that indicate the Keystone XL pipeline would create upwards of 13,000 jobs of a full and extended-term nature and support over 42,000 jobs on the periphery — creating over $2 billion in worker’s income and close to $70 million in state and local taxes over a two-year period.

These facts demonstrate that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, in terms of job creation, is a force multiplier. Thousands of jobs — temporary or not — will be created across America in fields such as construction, manufacturing, transportation, management and administration of the completed pipeline and the various support roles.  It will create new income all over the country.

Obama’s downplaying of this potential spotlights his cavalier and disingenuous dismissal of the pipeline and the jobs it can create and further exposes the President’s ignorance regarding simple economics.  It also seems to betray his professed commitment to an “all of the above” energy strategy.

Equally as important is the Keystone XL pipeline could reduce the cost of oil and gas, which would then increase discretionary income.  This factor allows people to save more, invest or simply spend as they see fit.  This could create a fiscal surge that increase consumer confidence to show the economy is getting better.

But, rather than embrace the benefits of this possibility, Obama fabricates and chuckles.

He chuckles — undoubtedly with the knowledge that his ideological fixation with “green energy” cost the American taxpayer $26 billion in “shovel-ready” stimulus dollars that actually only created less than 3,000 jobs — at a cost of almost $11.5 million per job.

How many jobs has the President’s recycled campaign speeches created?

And over the next several weeks at a time when the Obamas are on yet another vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, too many Americans — those fortunate enough to be working — will be introduced to a reduction in their hours thanks to Obama’s vision of government-administered health care for America.

It’s a vision that not even congressmen and their staffers are fond of now that they’ve had a chance to read the bill that they passed.

Nero fiddled as Rome burned.