Unemployment is now 10.2%. That's still more than half a point better than the incredible 10.8% Reagan managed to reach by the end of the second year of his presidency, but it's a whole lot worse than we'd become accustomed to in the last couple decades.... and predictions are that it'll get still worse -- topping out around 10.5%. Will we wind up with the worst rates since the Great Depression?

The good news is that unemployment is typically considered a trailing indicator. With GDP recently growing again, we'd expect job creation to show up after a short delay.

No job creation yet,but the newly unemployed is now slowing. We seem to be getting a lot of good news on companies moving in and retail is getting a little better. Car sales are up so there must be money coming from somewhere.

Congress passed another unemployment extension and kept the first time homeowner rebate. I know cash for Clunkers was ridiculed but auto parts companies are working 10 and 12 hours a day.Some 7 days., building new cars to replace those sold.

Obama promised to help the small business community. Several green and technology companies have moved in here. I passed one this morning that was shut down a year ago.It is now reopening.

There are small,hopeful signs all over that the recession is easing.

Last week the Obama administration issued a report purporting to show that the President’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan had saved or created exactly 640,329 jobs. Such a precise number for such a fuzzy concept as jobs “saved or created” immediately raised doubts about the veracity of the report in any honest American’s mind.

And since that report was issued, a once compliant press has filed story after story tearing the credibility of the Obama administration’s job creation claims to shreds. Just enter the words “stimulus”, “jobs”, and “report” in a Google News search and these are just some of the headlines you will receive:

• Stimulus Job Report Filled With Errors
• Stimulus Watch: Salary raises counted as saved jobs
• White House Tally Appears to Overstate Stimulus Jobs
• Reports Show Conflicting Number of Jobs Attributed to Stimulus Money
• Stimulus Watchdog: job counters confused, need guidance
• Why stimulus jobs aren’t here to stay
• Many California jobs ’saved’ by stimulus funds weren’t in jeopardy

Luckily the American people do not need to count on phony new jobs studies to provide the objective data necessary to hold President Barack Obama accountable for his economic policies. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics has been collecting accepted and standardized data employment data since the 1940s. When President Obama was selling his $787 billion stimulus to the American people he promised unemployment would never rise above 7.8% and that by 2010 the U.S. economy would employ 138.6 million jobs.

Today, BLS released its monthly jobs report and the numbers speak for themselves. The economy shed another 190,000 jobs in October, bringing the number of jobs lost since Obama was sworn in to 3.8 million. Worse still, the unemployment rate rose from 9.8% to 10.2% percent. With only 130.8 million jobs in the U.S. economy, President Obama is now 7.8 million jobs short of what he promised the American people. That makes President Obama’s stimulus an objective failure.

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Whether it's a failure or not is dependent on how you characterize the goal. If the goal was to somehow take the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and keep that from causing unemployment to rise even as high as it was when Reagan was president, it's an objective failure. If the goal was to take the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and keep unemployment from rising anywhere near as badly as it did during the Great Depression, the jury is still out. The Obama team was quite ambitious, and judged against their own ambition, it was a faiulre, but that was a high standard.

Just my opinion. The stimulus was to create a feeling among people that something could be done to help. It gave people hope and in the long run it builds confidence.

No matter how much or how little it accomplished you could look around and see things being done.The last time I took a small trip I saw signs all over of new roads being built,bridges and others fixed.When we can see progress in our own country it shows something is being done.Even that will bring in more taxes.

Arkady,

Part of the issue is also due to the fact that many business' are seeing increased productivity from their current workforce. So they are reluctant to expand that workforce since it is keeping up with increased production.

Until next time,

Zif.

Some people like John Williams at shadowstats say that unemployment is counted differently today than it was in Reagan's time, and that more people today are ignored. I think that's plausible, but would like some evidence. This recession probably feels worse than the 1981-2 recession even though government has thrown a couple magnitudes more of money at today's recession. Folks were pretty much on their own back in 1982, and there wasn't 79 weeks of unemployment insurance available in any state.

The average workweek was 33 hours, and that will have to rise before many new people are hired. I wonder about the quality of the new jobs, and if they pay a livable wage?

Bernanke seems hell-bent on blowing another bubble with the dollar carry trade, and some worry this could blow up soon and we could get a double dip recession if we don't get hyperinflation. For sure the man has too much responsibility and has assumed too much power while congress argues and dithers.

I've read that the birth death model's numbers are still unrealistic. One thing's for sure; it's a hell of a time to be looking for a job.