Are you saying that the stimulus caused the 9.4% unemployment rate? If so, please indicate what the rate would be today without the stimulus. But if you are merely saying that the stimulus did nothing, please indicate what the rate would be today without the stimulus. And please, no Petsamo-esque, "it would have been lower". You seem sure of yourself, so you should have data.
OP - take it to the Daily Kos because that crap don't fly. Yes - Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are doing wonders. Might as well start with those fresh busts for Mount Rushmore. If you want to include chronic underemployment as well as the citizens who have stopped looking for employment then maybe the NBLS metrics will become more relevant.
Please update the graph to include the previous 7 years of Bushs term in office. (did you think we would be fooled by you just showing 1 year and claiming it was 8?)
It's the same chart that Goolsbee is using as he make the rounds of the talk shows. He/they are trying to control the discussion based on their facts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmybtPlga1U
Ricter did not interpret rc8222's statement correctly. To rephrase rc8222's statement, Obama has squandered trillions of dollars of the people's money.
Wage cuts steepest since the Depression? POSTED AT 12:15 PM ON JANUARY 11, 2011 BY ED MORRISSEY The continued high rate of unemployment has made labor a buyerâs market, and the effect on price has been predictable â and substantial. The Wall Street Journal reports that wages have fallen farther than at any time since the 1981-82 recession, and that this downturn has already exceeded that crisis. As the unemployed scale back expectations on both jobs and income levels, compensation has retreated farther than any time since the Great Depression: In one sense, this is just the normal response to supply and demand. Labor is a commodity in that sense, and the cost of labor increases when supply is short, and decreases when supply is glutted. As a hiring manager for several years in the Twin Cities, we had to repeatedly increases wages across the board (not just for new hires) to keep staff on board and to entice qualified applicants to work for us when unemployment in the area was in the 3% range. Right now itâs more like 7% in this region, and Iâm certain that had I remained in that career, I would be finding it much easier to keep the call center staffed without having to raise compensation levels at all. It may not be quite as bad as it sounds, either. While compensation falls as the jobless have to settle into new, less-lucrative jobs, prices are also falling in other areas, especially in real estate. Retail prices have stabilized, but retailers are still relying on heavy discounting to move inventory. Buying power may not be declining as much as wages, although itâs certainly not increasing. The reason that the problem is worse than at any time since the Depression, assuming that the WSJ is correct in that analysis, is that we have had the worst extended unemployment since that time. The best way to resolve this problem is, not coincidentally, the best way to resolve the housing crisis and other economic woes: stimulate job-creating growth. Unfortunately, as the Obama administration pursues its regulatory expansion, it will disincentivize that kind of domestic investment, which will perpetuate this problem for at least another two years. Update: As the first commenter rightly notes, food and energy prices have risen (theyâre linked, too), so that does accelerate the erosion of buying power.
A quick google search shows that WSJ who are no DailyKos, says the same. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/