Gallup: Unemployment Rose To 9% in February

Have you recovered?

Unemployment in the U.S. rose to nine percent in mid-February, up from 8.3 percent a month earlier, according to a new Gallup survey. The polling company said this suggests that it is “premature” to assume the economy will not feature prominently in the 2012 election season.

Gallup figures typically provide an indication of what the government will report at the end of the month.

“The U.S. unemployment rate, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is 9.0% in mid-February,” Gallup said in its mid-month unemployment survey, released on February 17. “The mid-month reading normally reflects what the U.S. government reports for the entire month, and is up from 8.3% in mid-January.”

Real unemployment, including underemployment and discouraged workers, rose to 19%.

This seems like an odd thing to say in a report:

“Regardless of what the government reports, Gallup’s unemployment and underemployment measures show a sharp deterioration in job market conditions since mid-January.”

Does Gallup have suspicions that the government won't report the rise?

AP: This Time, Obama Peddles "Modest" American Dream. This is not the moment when the oceans began to fall, it turns out.

- This time around, President Barack Obama's message can sound decidedly down-to-earth.

Four years after winning the White House, Obama is dealing with a different economic and political reality as he seeks re-election. He's focused less on a lofty vision for overcoming divisions and remaking Washington, and more on the most basic building blocks of middle-class economic security: a job, a house, a college education for the kids, health care, money for retirement.

What Obama describes as the American Dream can seem a spare, fundamental aspiration, tailored for a campaign that looks to be fought over who is best equipped to safeguard the interests of middle-class Americans.

...

"That's all most people want," he said. "Folks don't have unrealistic ambitions. They do believe that if they work hard they should be able to achieve that small measure of an American Dream."

The goals can seem almost humdrum in comparison with some of the rhetoric from Obama's 2008 White House campaign. But the message sounds made for the times, with the country emerging haltingly from recession, the income gap widening and unemployment stuck above 8 percent.

This sounds like Obama's 25th "pivot to the economy."

Which is itself an indictment.

The economy was in meltdown when he took office. That meltdown is 85% of the reason he was elected in the first place.

Why was there any need to pivot to the economy? He never should have been off the economy and jobs, not even for a moment.

Joe Biden, Road Scholar. He'll be campaigning in "Road Island," his crack team of staffers inform.

Announcing the vice president's schedule following the President's Day holiday, staffers reported Joe Biden as being off to 'Road Island.'

For "balance," the Daily Mail goes back weeks ago to find a spelling error in Santorum's schedule.

While planning a trip to Bemidji, Minnesota, a press release for Mr Santorum's stop misspelled it 'Bimidji.'

Just my own bias, I guess, but it seems like Rhode Island, one of the 13 original colonies and a state, of course, is slightly better known than Bemidji, Minnesota. And easier to spell.

If you got out of primary school not realizing that "Road Island" wasn't the way you spelled it -- maybe you don't know how to spell it, but at least you should know that's not the way to spell it -- I don't know what the hell you're doing working as a liberal Democrat staffer to the Vice President.

Tell a lie, I guess I do know what you're doing there.

posted by Ace at 11:08 AM

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