Illusory Unemployment Drop Celebrated, While Real Job Growth Remains Blocked

“This holiday season is bringing more of the same bad news that millions of jobless workers heard last year… American workers are weathering the effects of an economy where there is only one job for every three individuals searching for a job.”

No, the above isn’t addressing our current economic quagmire, it is two sentences contained in the first paragraph of a letter sent to former President George W. Bush by Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Leader and Tom Daschle, Senate Democratic Leader in November 2003 complaining about what they felt was high unemployment then and urging more unemployment funding to combat it.

After suffering the worst terrorist attack in history, an attack right in the heart of our financial district and lingering effects of a recession that began shortly after taking office, unemployment had peaked at 6.3% in June 2003 and was dropping; reaching 5.8% in the very month the letter was written.

Democrats were complaining how unacceptable such unemployment numbers were as we heading into the 2004 election season.

Contrast that now as we see celebratory headlines like: Unemployment rate falls to 8.6 percent, lowest in 2½ years, with good signs for small business

Through the first two years of the Obama administration, Democrats had full and complete control of the government to implement the very policies they called for back in 2003. Unemployment, after dipping to 4.4% during the Bush administration, was setting at 7.8% when Obama took office, after two years of Democrats seizing control of both houses of congress in the 2006 election.

During that first two years of Obama’s reign, with full Democrat control of the country, unemployment peaked at 10.1% and for all but two months after the March 2009 “low,” remains at 9% and over, many Democrats calling 9% “the new normal.”

Don’t get me wrong, any drop in unemployment is good, if there really is a drop and not just a matter of cooking the books to create a false illusion of an improving economy. We’re told in the article linked above, “The country added 120,000 jobs in November” eliciting comments such as, “Something good is stirring in the U.S. economy,” by economist Ian Shepherdson.

We’re told the new numbers “clinched one of the best weeks in stock market history.”

As we head into the 2012 election season, with Obama seeking a second term, article and reports as this leads all to believe it’s all coming up roses.

What we do not read and should be considered is, “the main reason unemployment ‘fell’ is because the workforce has shrunk. Those who have given up looking for jobs are not included in unemployment statistics,” as shown in a Freedom Works post written by Celia Bigelow.

Confirming her claims, we read much deeper in the rosy article from the Washington Post,

“Still, more than 300,000 people stopped their job searches last month, so they were no longer officially counted as unemployed. That accounts for some of the drop in the unemployment rate.”
“The so-called underemployment rate, which counts people who have given up looking and people who are working part-time but want full-time jobs, did fall — to 15.6 percent from 16.2 percent.”
“But even with the recent gains, the economy isn’t close to replacing the jobs lost in the recession. Employers began shedding workers in February 2008 and cut nearly 8.7 million jobs for the next 25 months. The economy has regained about 2.5 million.”
“And most people aren’t getting raises. Average hourly pay slipped 2 cents last month to $23.18. In the past year, wages have risen 1.8 percent, but inflation has risen twice as fast, eroding buying power.”

Obama ironically says, “Now is not the time to slam the brakes on the recovery, right now it’s time to step on the gas,” as that is exactly what Obama and the Democratic Party has been doing while deepening our dependence upon foreign energy sources, by maintaining their moratorium on domestic and off-shore recovery of our own sources of energy.

From putting off construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the continuing moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, even to the call by all six Democratic West Coast Senators to permanently ban recovering our own sources of energy off the Pacific Coast, millions of potential private sector jobs fall by the wayside. Jobs that pay very well and generate Billions of dollars of new revenue for the treasury.

In reply to questions by Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Edward Markey, challenging the industries studies showing there really are millions of jobs to be made available, CEO and President of the American Petroleum Institute Jack Gerard made clear that such projections are indeed accurate and corrected false views often made against our energy suppliers.

Just days ago, a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed The Non-Green Jobs Boom told us, “The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently that the U.S. jobless rate remains a dreadful 9%. But look more closely at the data and you can see which industries are bucking the jobless trend. One is oil and gas production, which now employs some 440,000 workers, an 80% increase, or 200,000 more jobs, since 2003. Oil and gas jobs account for more than one in five of all net new private jobs in that period” and “While Washington has tried to force-feed renewable energy with tens of billions in special subsidies, oil and gas production has boomed thanks to private investment. And while renewable technology breakthroughs never seem to arrive, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have revolutionized oil and gas extraction—with no Energy Department loan guarantees needed.”

While the Obama administration may celebrate an 8.6% unemployment rate, October saw North Dakota’s unemployment rate setting at 3.5% and straining the resources of the state with such rapid growth in a small region.

The resources will catch up in time, but the proof of the jobs waiting to be filled and that remain blocked by Obama and the Democrats is there for all to see. Opening other areas were known reserves of oil and natural gas sit, waiting to be recovered within our own country would not only alleviate the strain in North Dakota, but give much needed jobs across the country, speeding a real recovery for the country.

If Obama really thinks “right now it’s time to step on the gas,” he first needs to get his lead foot off of the brakes!