Are You Now (or Will You Become) One of the 28 Million Unemployed the Administration Missed?

The table below displays unemployment rate projections in (1) President Obama’s first budget in February 2009, and (2) President Obama’s current budget, released today.

Significantly, as the Administration’s budget documents in 2009 noted, their projections then incorporated the effects of the Administration’s trillion-dollar February 2009 stimulus plan, which the President said will “save or create at least three and a half million jobs, and help to revive our economy.”  As the Administration’s current figures confirm, however, that stimulus plan has been a colossal failure, with 4.5 million more people unemployed this year than they projected in 2009.

(more…)

1.  Congressional Budget Office (January 31, 2012)

“The unemployment rate would be even higher than it is now had participation in the labor force not declined as much as it has over the past few years….Had that portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn in the business cycle (on the basis of the experience in previous downturns) not occurred, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 11⁄4 percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7 percent.”

2.  Ezra Klein, The Washington Post (January 6, 2012)

“Unemployment is 8.5 percent — and, if not for the millions of discouraged workers who have left the labor force since 2008, it would be nearer to 11 percent. It’s nice to add 200,000 jobs in a single month, but, as this graph from the Hamilton Project shows, at that rate, it will take well over a decade to fully recover from the Lesser Depression.

3.  Jay Cost, The Weekly Standard (February 8, 2012)

(more…)

A recent “infographic” released by the White House tries to assign the blame for our massive debt and deficits to former President Bush and Republican Congresses.  However, the graphic conveniently omits President Obama’s record and his plans for the fiscal future of our country.  If the President had his way and his Fiscal Year 2012 budget proposal was enacted, here is what a comparison of the increase in public debt would look like:

As the graph above shows, the debt held by the public increased $2.4 trillion between 2000 and 2008, from $3.4 trillion to $5.8 trillion.  Under President Obama’s budget proposal, the debt held by the public is projected to increase $6.1 trillion between 2008 and 2012, from $5.8 trillion to $11.9 trillion.

(more…)

“I am concerned about the fact that the recovery that we’re on is not producing jobs as quickly as I want it to happen,” Obama said at an appearance with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We don’t yet know whether this is a one-month episode or a longer trend.”

THEN (January 2009)

“Without stimulus” there would be about 134 million jobs in the U.S. by late 2010:

Source: Administration’s January 2009 Romer/Bernstein Report.

NOW (March 2011)

Without stimulus, there would have been 127 million jobs in the U.S. by late 2010:

(more…)

Washington Post, “Hidden workforce challenges domestic economic recovery,” March 15, 2011:

“Adding These Workers to February’s Jobless Rate Pushes It Up to 10.5 Percent”

“Overshadowing the nation’s economic recovery is not only the number of Americans who have lost their jobs, but also those who have stopped looking for new ones.  These workers are not counted in the Labor Department’s monthly unemployment rate, yet they say they are willing to work. Since the recession began, their numbers have grown by 30 percent, to more than 6.4 million, amounting to a hidden labor force that could stymie the turnaround. Adding these workers to February’s jobless rate pushes it up to 10.5 percent, well above the more commonly cited 8.9 percent rate.”

The following is a chart that has been regularly updated by Ways and Means Republicans, displaying the unemployment rate including unemployed people the Washington Post calls the “hidden labor force.” This same group was dubbed the “invisible unemployed” by Austan Goolsbee, the Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, in an article he wrote in 2003 assailing the prior Administration.  According to Goolsbee, the “invisible unemployment rate” back then “probably pushed 8 percent” – well below the current level.

(more…)

RevenueRaisersOverviewFY12Budget021411

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a union-funded organization, has estimated that the cuts contained in the CR would result in a loss of 994,000 jobs. This analysis is based on a highly simplified economic analysis that has repeatedly been demonstrated to be wildly inaccurate.

EPI’s Jobs Analysis – Even the White House Thinks It Is Wrong

• EPI’s track record on forecasting the impact of policies on job creation is even rejected by the White House.
  • For example, EPI estimates that the U.S.-Korea Trade Promotion Agreement would result in a loss of 159,000 jobs.
  • In contrast, the President has said repeatedly that this trade agreement will create 70,000 jobs.

Romer/Bernstein Analytical Methods – Wrong Before, Wrong Now

(more…)

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Director Dr. Donald Berwick and Chief Actuary Rick Foster testified before the Ways and Means Committee today to provide answers to pressing questions about the trillion dollar health care law.  Dr. Berwick, having been in office eight months, had never testified before the Ways and Means Committee even though the committee oversees health care policy for the entire country.  Chief Actuary Foster didn’t testify before the committee in the last Congress even though health care was being “debated.”

To put it in perspective two Obama Administration officials control a budget at CMS larger than the entire budget of the Department of Defense.

Play the videos or read the excerpts of CMS Director Berwick’s evasive responses followed by excerpts from Chief Actuary Foster’s testimony.

Dr. Berwick

What is your opinion on a rationing system and universal health care?

Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp: “Well, regarding the British National health service, you made a statement, and that is a service that is notorious for rationing care, you said and I quote ‘I fell in love with the NHS…to an American observer, the NHS is such a seductress.’ Are you still in love with the NHS?”

Dr. Berwick: “There are strengths and weaknesses for every health care system around the world.”

Chairman Camp: “Well you also wrote and I am quoting here, ‘I admit to my own devotion to a single-payer mechanism as the only sensible approach to health care finance I can think of.’ Do you still feel a government run single payer health care system is the only sensible approach?”

Dr. Berwick: “I am really excited by the promise the Affordable Health Care Act offers, Mr. Chairman, to American health care.”

Is there anything you would change to the Democrats’ Health Law?

Rep. Dave Reichert (WA): “Is there anything that stands out in your mind that you would change? What don’t you like about the bill, or is it all good?”

Dr. Berwick: “It is a very complicated bill sir.”

(more…)

THEN (April 4, 2010):
Administration officials say growing labor force is “a great sign”

Behind the high unemployment rate, “there’s just been a tremendous increase in the labor force,” Christina Romer, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’  “Over the last three months, we’ve added more than a million people to the labor force. And that’s actually, that’s a great sign,” Romer added. “That’s a sign that people that might have been discouraged dropped out because of the terrible recession, have started to have some hope again and are looking for work again.”

NOW (February 4, 2011):
What will the Administration say now that the labor force is shrinking?

Facts reveal sharp declines in the labor force since the March 2010 data Romer described above, with especially steep drops in the last two months.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the labor force has shrunk by 709,000 since March 2010.  Given this reality, will the Administration now say this trend is a “not great sign” indicating people have “lost hope again”?

(more…)

In a Department of Justice (DOJ) legal brief in the case of the “State of Florida v. The Department of Health and Human Services,” the Obama Administration argues the individual mandate (requiring Americans to buy a government-approved insurance plan even if they can’t afford it) is a constitutional exercise of Congress’s power to collect taxes.

But recently, when asked at a Ways and Means Committee hearing examining the impact of the Democrats’ health care law on the economy and the nation’s employers, an Administration Cabinet official gave a different answer – not only about whether the individual mandate was a tax, but the witness went so far as to challenge whether the 10 percent indoor tanning tax was actually a tax.

(more…)

For the last two years, Washington has ignored the plight of the American people and job creators. Instead, a Democratic-led Congress saddled them with policies that fostered uncertainty and eliminated jobs. Democrats’ continued pursuit of misguided economic policies and reckless spending have driven our debt to $14 trillion – a level that has cost the U.S. economy as many as 1 million jobs and that continues to undermine our nation’s economic recovery.

In January of 2009, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, then President Obama’s chief economic advisors, put together an analysis predicting that the Democrats’ stimulus package would “save or create” at least 3 million jobs by the end of 2010. Similarly, Romer and Bernstein claimed that passage of the stimulus package would keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent, falling to 7 percent by the end of 2010. But since that time, the unemployment rate has remained above 9 percent for 20 consecutive months, and there are 6.8 million fewer jobs than Romer and Bernstein predicted in their now-infamous report.

The arrival of 2011 has ended the era of the failed economic policies embraced by the Democratic Administration and advanced by unchecked Democratic Congressional Leaders. Instead, in the 112th Congress, the new Republican House Majority will pursue a contrasting agenda that creates the climate of certainty necessary to usher in a new era of private sector job creation. Congress sent a strong signal of that commitment in December by extending the current tax rates and preventing a massive tax hike on Americans and small businesses. If there is any hope of getting Americans back to work, Washington must get out of the way and let employers do what they do best and what America needs most – create jobs.

(more…)