New CBO Estimate: 2.3 Million More Jobs Lost Next Year

Meredith Jessup | August 27, 2009 12:24 PM

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is predicting the nation's unemployment rate to rise to over 10% in the next year--reaching as high as 10.2%. A quick calculation by former Bush aide Keith Hennessey finds that this translates to almost 200,000 more jobs lost every month for the entire year than originally predicted.

It's unclear at this point what these new estimates mean for Obama's "created or saved" jobs number... I guess we'll just have to wait for the White House on that one.

Hennessey notes:

CBO and OMB project a weaker economy in the remainder of 2009 and in 2010 than they projected at the beginning of this year before enactment of the stimulus.

How much weaker?

Based on CBO’s forecast for the average unemployment rate in calendar year 2010, 2.3 million fewer people will be employed on average next year than they projected in January.

For comparison, in July there were about 140 million people employed in the U.S.

Next year’s reality will depend heavily on when the economy turns up and how quickly growth returns. A new projection of fewer people employed next year should not surprise anyone. But 2.3 million is a big bad number.