Unemployment worse than it sounds

The Democratic mantra of “29 straight months of job growth” sounds great, doesn’t it? This claim is actually a good example of how easy it is to lie with statistics. As CNN notes, there are fewer jobs being created each month than the number new people entering the job market. In other words, much like the national debt, we are actually running a jobs deficit every month with a growing number of new workers, young people who are unable to find jobs. These new workers are not being counted in the unemployment numbers due to the fact that they did not already have jobs, so they are not eligible for unemployment benefits.

Official unemployment numbers have also declined because again, as CNN notes, “for every one worker that finds a job, four stop looking.” So despite the fact that unemployment numbers seem to have declined slightly, the actual number of people unemployed continues to grow.

We should also note that the biggest growth in jobs has come in the government sector, which is kind of like giving your kids money to do work around the house. You might be happy that they are actually being productive, but your family does not actually have any more money to spend. There is no actual job creation here. The only real thing that is being created is an additional tax burden.

Now, the president did have around $800 billion in stimulus money to spend on creating jobs — much of which was spent on saving government jobs rather than creating anything new. “Twenty-nine straight months of job growth” sounds great. That’s only if you don’t take the time to put them in context and forget about the fact that we are approximately $800 billion further in debt.

Scott Schmidt

Arlington Heights