August Jobs

The latest unemployment numbers are out – 9.6%. The country lost a net of 54,000 jobs. The private sector actually added 67,000 jobs, but the government cut 121,000. Since most of those government cuts were temporary census workers, those cuts come as no surprise. What is surprising is the loss of 54,000 jobs is being hailed as “progress”. That’s because the losses were worse in July, so I guess it is progress – about like the way a kid going from a 10 to a 15 on an Algebra test is “progress”. But in both cases, it’s still an ‘F’.

But its’ surprising to see how low we’ve come in our expectations. From Jan. 2001 to Dec. 2006, 7.5 million jobs were created and countless others were "saved". That's an average of 100,000+ net jobs created per month. Now we're hearing how wonderful it is that we lost "only" 54,000, by the same folks who complained that the 7.5 million weren't enough. Oh, and in Dec. 2006, unemployment was 4.6%.

So what happened? Here's a hint: Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took control of their respective chambers in Congress in Jan. 2007 and have held it ever since. That "mess" Obama keeps saying he inherited came courtesy of his own party!