Three years ago yesterday Barack Obama signed his $800 billion Stimulus into law in Denver, Colorado.
He said would save or create 4 million jobs and that the unemployment rate would be below 6% by now. He failed.
Obama’s spending didn’t stop with the Stimulus of course. In fact he’s piled up more than $4 trillion of new debt during his first three years with more than a trillion of additional red ink expected this year.
Still the question remains, where are the jobs? Today more than 13 million Americans that want a job can’t find one. Another 4 million Americans have given up even trying to find work. Five million jobs lost in the recession have yet to return. This has already been the deepest and longest lasting recession since the Great Depression. Barack Obama squandered trillions of dollars and American’s still wonder, “Where are the jobs?” he promised.
The following graph is courtesy of the House Republican Study Committee (RSC). It charts the steep decline of the Labor Participation Rate (LPR) from January 2005 to the present. The LPR represents the number of people employed or looking for a job out of the total age-eligible workforce. It is an indication of the confidence level in the state of the economy. It’s not a very encouraging picture, and yet another serious indictment of the failed policies and wasteful spending of this Administration.
From the Republican Study Group:
Democrats said their costly plan ($1.2 trillion, including interest) would “save or create” up to 4 million jobs and bring the unemployment rate down to about 6% today. The unemployment rate has not fallen below 8% at any point in the last 36 months. Furthermore, the official unemployment rate does not actually count unemployed people who have given up looking for work.
The above chart shows the “labor force participation rate.” This statistic represents the share of working-age Americans who are either employed or unemployed but looking for work. It is not a pretty picture. Only 63.7% of working-age Americans are currently in the workforce – the lowest in almost 29 years!
To put it another way, 36.3% of working-age Americans do not have a job and are not even looking.