The unemployment rate rose again in June, reaching 9.2 percent. That’s nearly 3 percent higher than what you promised it would be if Congress passed your $814,000,000,000 stimulus bill. Approximately 2.8 million people have lost their jobs since you took office. Further, the labor participation rate is the lowest in 30 years and long term unemployment is the worst it’s been since the middle of the Great Depression. In fact, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, if the number of people looking for work today were the same as it had been at the beginning of your presidency, the unemployment rate would be over 11 percent. Average weekly earnings and hours worked are down also. Accordingly, consumer confidence is in the tank.
Despite the above, your campaign chief, David Plouffe, maintains that voters won’t base their decisions on the unemployment rate.
To the extent Plouffe’s statement isn’t whistling-past-the-graveyard campaign rhetoric, is it a reflection of your administration’s resignation that you’re wholly incapable of positively affecting the unemployment rate?
Your economic policies have been in place for two-and-a-half years now. How much longer before the promised salutary effects kick in?
Given that on a broad range of metrics, economists maintain that this is the worst recovery since the Great Depression, when will you change your policies that have proven to be, at best, ineffective?
What do you expect the unemployment rate to be in November 2012? What do you expect the unemployment rate to be on January 21, 2013?