Unemployment at 8.5%: Or How Obama’s Stimulus Failed

Posted by in Blog on January 6, 2012 9:57 am / 13 comments

Since the Left is cheering 8.5% unemployment today, I thought we’d revisit reality for a bit.

There’s something else this chart is telling us that we should definitely point out. The light blue line was the projection of the unemployment rate without the stimulus. This says that if Congress had not passed the stimulus, unemployment would have gone down eventually anyway. As you can see, the actual numbers are still higher.

If we were to use the logic the Left is using to hail the success of Obama’s policies, using this chart, we could easily say that Obama’s policies have made things worse.

 
 

13 Comments

  1. Gary Thompson says:
    January 6, 2012 at 10:21 am

    Can you imagine the bloviating Obama would be doing now if the AJA had passed in the Fall of 2011?

    http://cosmoscon.com/2012/01/05/what-would-obama-be-saying-now/

    The unemployment rate is coming down due to people fleeing the workforce but Debbie Downer and Obama will be trying to spin it as a policy win – although they can’t point to a single policy they enacted to help address jobs.

  2. geek49203 says:
    January 6, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    Actually, this graph is in error. I contacted the people who do this graph, but for some reason they don’t see their error.

    Simply put, the only way we have a 8.5% unemployment rate is that the workforce numbers have shrunk — either because people really have left the workforce, or because the Obama people have ordered them shrunk.

    The “real” number, assuming 2007 participation rates, would be around 11.5%.

  3. RB says:
    January 6, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    Thanks, Geek. You’re right, of course. An accurate graph would show and even bigger failure.

  4. geek49203 says:
    January 6, 2012 at 4:04 pm

    RB — I’m seeing other sources claim that the “real” rate, using the old total employment numbers data, would be 10.9%.

    http://blog.american.com/2012/01/what-the-plunging-unemployment-rate-really-means-for-obamas-reelection/

  5. John M. Bischoff says:
    January 7, 2012 at 11:50 am

    01/07/2012

    I have a question??? Does the unemployment % take into consideration the people who have exhausted their benefits and does it also include people who are working part-time jobs????

  6. Chicagoman says:
    January 8, 2012 at 9:25 am

    All the stats here doesn’t include the people who have exhausted their benifits and they are not even considered in these stat numbers. Alot of these jobs that are avalible are not jobs that would come close to supporting a family they are poverty level type jobs. Obama gets on his pedistal and tells the American people about his job plain but what he don’t tell the people is that the majority of these jobs he is creating are non- paying jobs as this is just another one of his political scams to make himself look good.

  7. jluther says:
    January 8, 2012 at 10:46 am

    @John M Bischoff

    Unemployment only counts those people who have been actively seeking work for the past month. It does not include people who work part time, as they are employed, even though they would rather have a full time job. Those with exhausted benefits may also not be counted under certain calculation methods.

  8. chicagoman says:
    January 8, 2012 at 3:00 pm

    …the American people that have already exhasted their benefits are NOT even counted as a satistic. Obama’s job creation is a sham as over half the jobs he is creating are non-paying jobs, but he won’t tell you that, it’s all a ploy to make himself look good to the American people.

  9. Sharpton spins 8.3% unemployment as “fantastic” for Obama » The Right Scoop - says:
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  10. Time To Get Behind Romney | cosmoscon says:
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  11. Liberals Are Getting Desperate | cosmoscon says:
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  12. President Obama is the Real ‘Pretender’ | The Right Sphere says:
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  13. Martin Bashir’s Duplicitous, Child-like Claim Romney Going To Hell For Saying Obama Pegged Unemployment At 8% » Black Web Entertainment says:
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