The July jobs report (released in early August) painted the picture of a continuing jobless recovery. The economy actually lost 131,000 jobs, total — a figure that reflected the ending of 143,000 temporary Census jobs that had inflated earlier numbers. The private sector created a feeble 71,000 jobs, quite below expectation. These were fewer than the reported 83,000 jobs in the June report, but even that number was revised downward to just 31,000.
Also interesting was the loss of 38,000 jobs in local government, a result of the continuing deficits being seen at the municipal level. Democrats in Congress rushed through another $26 billion in stimulus spending aimed at shoring up the municipal job market (public employees invariably vote Democratic).
The unemployment rate remained at 9.5%, but only because (as in earlier months) many thousands of unemployed gave up looking for work. It’s obvious that the stimulus bills passed so far have failed to stimulate jobs.
President Obama’s reaction was predictably narcissistic and delusional. He and his underlings started putting out
the risible claim that the stimulus bills averted a depression and created “or saved” three million jobs. Not many people bought it.
