Was Today’s Jobs News Good?

The administration trumpets the fact that nonfarm payrolls increased by 243,000 in January, dropping the unemployment rate to 8.3%, only .5% higher than when Barack Obama took office. This is what counts as good news in the beleaguered West Wing!

But how good was today’s news, really? What is mainly going on is that fewer Americans have any intention of working; therefore, they cannot be unemployed. That is the Orwellian logic that underlies “good news” in the Age of Obama. The key fact is that labor force participation has reached a 30-year low of only 63.7%. More and more Americans are giving up on gainful work and resigning themselves to lives of dependence on government. Barack Obama thinks that is a good thing. Do you?

Here is another very basic fact: notwithstanding the employment gains in January, there are fewer Americans working today than there were when George W. Bush took office in January 2001, and more than one million fewer Americans are working than when Barack Obama was inaugurated! What an appalling record! If Obama had campaigned in 2008 on the promise that, if he were elected, a million more Americans would be unable to find work, would you have voted for him? Would anyone have voted for him?

The Obama administration has been a disaster, and the reason is no mystery. Obama and his advisers do not understand how wealth and jobs are created. They have little or no experience in the private sector, they do not understand economics, and they think that parasitism is a viable strategy. So is it any wonder that when their policies are implemented, a million or more Americans are unemployed?

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