HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

Where are the jobs? More Signs the “Stimulus” Isn’t Working

At a fundraiser in Ohio today, Vice President Biden again reiterated his faith that the Democrats’ $1 trillion “stimulus” is working.  The Vice President said, “We’re no longer talking about whether there will be a recovery.  We’re talking about how quickly it will occur.  Because it’s working.” 

But that’s not what the employment numbers are saying.  In fact, an article published just this morning in the New Hampshire based Nashua Telegraph told a very different story:

New Hampshire has assigned at least half of its economic stimulus money to various projects or programs, but job totals remain at just 19 percent of initial White House projections…it remains unclear whether New Hampshire will reach the 16,000-job benchmark touted by the White House.

Moreover, the Telegraph notes that “Few of the jobs created or saved through September were in the private sector. The vast majority - some 2,800 - were public education or government jobs. The construction industry came in a distant third.” 

Meanwhile, small businesses are hurting - and are continuing to shed jobs, as David Altig, senior vice president and research director at the Atlanta Fed, describes on the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s macroblog: “businesses with fewer than 50 employees account for about one third of net employment gains in expansions. They have accounted for about 45 percent of job losses since the beginning of this recession.”

The following graph from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland illustrates three levels of unemployment, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The highest point (the green line) represents what economists call U-6, or, “The broadest measure of labor underutilization, U-6, includes people working part-time who would really like to have full-time jobs. These ‘underemployed’ people may have had their hours cut back by employers, or perhaps they were looking for full-time work and had to settle for part-time.”

As the Cleveland Fed notes, “High rates indicate that there are many people who have given up job searching due to poor prospects, and there are many part-timers who want and need full-time employment.” And a National Journal article from October 17 noted that “At last count, there were six unemployed workers for every job opening” and that “It is taking workers longer to find a job than at any time since the 1930s.”

In other words, the unemployment situation is even worse than the nearly 10 percent unemployment rate would suggest.  Since the “stimulus” was signed, nearly 3 million private sector jobs have been lost - and millions of Americans remain unemployed.  Yet the Vice President says that, “In my wildest dreams, I never thought [the ‘stimulus‘] would work this well.” 

Millions of Americans would beg to differ.  From New Hampshire to Ohio and beyond, the “stimulus” isn’t working.  Only out-of-touch Washington Democrats could throw over a trillion dollars out the window, see unemployment continue to rise, and claim that the “stimulus” is working.

As House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) wrote in USA Today last week, “By continuing to spend money we don’t have, Democrats are making matters worse for our economy, not better. It’s time to start working together to ensure the American people have a government that lives within its means.”

Read More:

• House GOP Economic Stimulus Plan
• Doubletalk: Speaker Pelosi’s Washington-Speak Can’t Mask Tax-and-Spend Agenda
• That’s It? Obama Administration Says Trillion-Dollar ‘Stimulus’ Has Run Its Course

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Stimulus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Where are the jobs? More Signs the “Stimulus” Isn’t Working”

1. Republican Leader John Boehner | Obama Treasury Secretary Grilled About Bogus Job Creation Claims Says:
   November 2nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm

   […] created 640,000 jobs” - despite the fact that unemployment is nearing 10 percent, and “underemployment” is already at 17 […]

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