Unemployment Holds at 10.0%, But That's Not the Whole Story

As always, there's more going on here than just the unemployment figure:

The Labor Department said Friday that employers cut 85,000 jobs last month, worse than the 8,000 drop analysts expected.

A sharp drop in the labor force, a sign more of the jobless are giving up on their search for work, kept the unemployment rate at the same rate as in November. Once people stop looking for jobs, they are no longer counted among the unemployed.

When discouraged workers and part-time workers who would prefer full-time jobs are included, the so-called "underemployment" rate in December rose to 17.3 percent, from 17.2 percent in October. That's just below a revised figure of 17.4 percent in October, the highest on records dating from 1994.

As always, check out Geoff's unemployment chart over at Innocent Bystanders.

Also [DiT]: Take a look at another one captured by Geoff from Moody's economist Mark Zandi, note the line "Predicted W/O Stimulus" with actuals plotted.

Negligible difference. Except for that whole massive debt thingy.

And more [Gabe:] See this analysis from James Pethokoukis.

And here's the conclusion from John over at Power Line:

What we are seeing, in other words, is Barack Obama's economy--the foreseeable consequence of the terrible economic policies that he, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have imposed or threatened to impose on the nation. There will of course be a recovery, as always; but that recovery will be much stronger and faster if Congress makes clear that it will block any further assaults on the economy in the form of cap and trade, massive tax increases, and so on.

Click over and read the whole thing.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:17 AM

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