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In the highly anticipated monthly unemployment report released Friday, the unemployment rate fell .4 percentage points to 8.6%, its lowest level since March 2009. The drop came as the private sector added 140,000 jobs in the month of November, with a loss of Government jobs bringing the overall number down to 120,000 net new jobs.
The White House used the unemployment data as ammunition in its fight to get the payroll tax extended for one year, a key provision of the President’s American Jobs Act.
In this environment, the President’s American Jobs Act is the right medicine to sustain and strengthen the recovery. In particular, with 13.3 million Americans still unemployed, and 43 percent of them unemployed for 6 months or longer, it would be a setback for the economy and American families if Congress were to allow extended unemployment benefits to expire at the end of the year. – Alan B. Krueger, Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers
However, the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, used the data to attack the President and push for “Republican Solutions.”
Today marks the 34th consecutive month of unemployment above eight percent. As you may remember, the Obama administration promised unemployment would stay below eight percent if its ‘stimulus’ was enacted. That promise has gone unfulfilled.
Because the president’s policies have failed, the House has passed a series of bills designed to remove government barriers to private sector job creation…
While the decrease in the unemployment rate is welcome news, experts warn that the big dip makes the situation appear better than it truly is. This is because the unemployment data only considers people who are in the labor market and are actively looking for jobs. As people become discouraged, they stop looking for jobs, making the labor market smaller. The truth to this report is that although legitimate jobs were added, about half of the drop in the unemployment rate is simply because almost 300,000 people stopped looking for work (which inflated the size of the dip in the unemployment rate). Because of this, analysts predict a future increase in the unemployment rate if jobs continue to be created at this slow rate (about 131,000/month).
The Unemployment data also showed a disproportionate addition of jobs. The jobless rate for whites and adult men decreased (adult men down .5% to 8.3%), while “the rates for adult women (7.8 percent), teenagers (23.7 percent), blacks (15.5 percent), and Hispanics (11.4 percent) showed little or no change”
Click HERE to view the full report.
