The truth about the national employment/unemployment scene? Same ol' same ol'

New "first time" jobless numbers, folks who are making their first application for benefits, totaled 460,000 for the week -- an increase in jobless numbers for the first time in four weeks and up from the 442,000 number reported last week. The Obama administration was hoping this number would be closer to the 420,000 mark.

Last week, it was reported that 160,000 jobs were created for the month and Obama touted this number as "another" sign demonstrating the positive effects of his $787 stimulus, an allocation passed into law more than a year ago and without any serious evidence for positive results since that time.

Midknight Review notes that in spite of the 160,000 new jobs report, the over-all jobless percentage, those who are currently unemployed or underemployed, rose for the third month in a row to 20.3 % of the nations work force or somewhere in the neighborhood of 34 million Americans. Unemployment for the week rose in 342 of the 372 municipalities reporting each week - another seriously poor number.

Understand that when it is all said and done, the $787 Stimulus (now an 861 billion dollar allocation) has accomplished precious little. What is not well known is the fact that less than 100 billion of the Stimulus was actually set aside for jobs proving that the Obama Administration has yet to get serious about jobs creation.

At the time of the Stimulus, Obama promised that 95% of the money would go to create private sector jobs. Turns out that this was another Obama lie. Less than 10% of the allocation has gone to benefit the private sector. The unemployment rate in Washington D.C., for example, 5.8 % while the same rate is 12.6% in California. D.C. employment is heavily tilted to the government jobs market.

Add to the mix the increasing number of foreclosures in the housing market and the fact that more than 60% of the 37 million unemployed/underemployed have been in that circumstance for more than 6 months and we have the signs of a continuing recession.

The fact that the stockmarket has increased by 60% over a year ago means almost nothing except to verify the fact that people know how to make money, even during bad times.
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