The new ad from the Republican National Committee seeks to hit Obama where Americans perceive his weakness to be — in unemployment and economic recovery.
Obama’s management of the economy may be the single biggest obstacle to his re-election, and more than half of Americans disapprove of his economic management, according to a poll from The New York Times/CBS.
But is this fair?
A new report from The Economist suggests that unemployment would have actually been higher without Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package, which Republican outside spending groups have repeatedly referred to as the “failed stimulus.”
“Conservatives say stimulus does not work,” says The Economist. But “most impartial work suggests they are wrong.”
The magazine cites a study from Daniel Wilson of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which found that stimulus spending created or saved 3.4 million jobs, which echoes what the Congressional Budget Office estimated. ...MarketPlace
Let's have a look at what job losses looked like eleven days before Obama was inaugurated -- during Bush's final year in office.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The hemorrhaging of American jobs accelerated at a record pace at the end of 2008, bringing the year's total job losses to 2.6 million or the highest level in more than six decades.
A sobering U.S. Labor Department jobs report Friday showed the economy lost 524,000 jobs in December and 1.9 million in the year's final four months, after the credit crisis began in September.
The unemployment rate rose to 7.2% last month from 6.7% in November - its highest rate since January 1993.
The steep annual drop in jobs marked the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945, the year in which World War II ended.
"We're seeing a complete unraveling of the labor market and are on track for getting beyond 10% unemployment," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute.
The total number of unemployed Americans rose by 632,000 to 11.1 million. ...CNN, 1/9/09
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