An Inconvenient Chart (Or Two)
When the stimulus passed with almost no Republican support, Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, declared that “the most important number … is how many jobs it produces, not how many votes it gets.”
He was right. But with unemployment near a 25-year high, that “most important number” isn’t looking very good. The White House is stuck arguing counterfactuals — how much worse the economy would be without the stimulus — and trumpeting obviously inflated estimates of how many jobs have been “created or saved” by federal dollars.
If the midterm elections were held today, the Democrats would probably take an unemployment-driven beating. In Gallup’s generic Congressional ballot, Republicans are up 22 points among independents, and they’ve opened up a rare lead among the voting public as a whole.
“Most of the prior Republican registered-voter leads,” Gallup notes, “occurred in 1994 and 2002.” Both were ugly years for liberalism.
Douthat is discussing the chart Obama used to pretend that his magic stimulus would save the economy. You remember – it would hold unemployment at the 8% mark.
Only we’re at a 10.2% official rate. Thus this unpleasant chart:
Which is itself a bit of a lie. You see when you factor in the underemployed and those who have simply given up looking for work altogether, the real unemployment rate is 17.5%.
How’s that hopenchange holding up, America?
Obamantics | Gaius November 16, 2009
5 Comments
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Remember the awful lack of jobs during the Bush years? | And Still I Persist — November 17, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
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By Maggie, November 17, 2009 @ 10:30 am
Gaius –
Didn’t know where to drop this news tip for you so here it is:
He’s still bowing …
http://tinyurl.com/yd6zr92
At this point the only people I want this idiot to bow to is our military, and beg for their forgiveness. I’d let pass his bow for forgiveness from the American people for that.
By ropelight, November 17, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
Averages by their very nature are useful for some purposes but they often conceal actual conditions if taken at face value and applied too widely. 17.5% on average for the country as a whole is a pretty good figure. But local unemployment is considerably less in some places, and much higher in others.
Yesterday’s hot spots are especially hard hit. In-migration was robust all during the go go times. In California, Nevada, and Florida real unemployment is above 20% statewide, and a good bit higher in places.
Example Florida: unemployment is below the national average in Jacksonville which has a large Naval base, and much higher in Fort Meyers and all along the SW Gulf Coast.
Example Nevada: Not too much higher in most places than the national average, but high in Reno and very high in Los Vegas.
If all politics is local, so is unemployment.
By Mockingbird, November 17, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
Here in Florida, it’s gotten pretty bad. If Obama lived nearby, I’d think about stealing his bicycle and selling it to buy a new dress shirt for my next interview.
By Dave the Rave, November 18, 2009 @ 6:07 am
Hey,now there’s a “Hockey Stick” that you can believe in.