Economy Alarm: Stimulus Working So Well that White House Still Forecasts 10% Unemployment for 2010

Stimulus Working So Well that White House Still Forecasts 10% Unemployment for 2010

Budget Projections Expose Empty Rhetoric in Defense of Partisan Spending Spree

Speaker Pelosi Claims the Stimulus Results are ‘On Track’

“The almost year-old stimulus bill’s progress is ‘on track,’ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asserted Wednesday… ‘When we passed the Recovery Act nearly one year ago, we pledged to create and save 3.5 million jobs over two years,’ Pelosi said in a statement. ‘This analysis shows that we are on track so far – with only half the money committed.’… Pelosi said further spending out of the stimulus act would mean more of an economic boost to the U.S.” (Michael O’Brien: “Stimulus Bill’s Progress ‘On Track,’ The Hill, 1/12/10)

Credibility Crash: White House Budget Forecasts Double-Digit Unemployment Throughout 2010, High Unemployment Levels for the Next Decade

President Obama doesn’t think unemployment within the next decade will return to the relatively low level it was in 2007 when he launched his presidential campaign, at least according to supplemental documents to his Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

Whether you consider the president’s assumptions about unemployment bleak or realistic, they will likely not come as welcome news to the millions of unemployed and underemployed – or to Democrats hoping to win elections in the next decade.

In the supplemental volume “Analytical Perspectives,” the Obama administration estimates that the annual average rate of unemployment will remain at 10% for 2010, and dip only slightly next year, in 2011, to 9.2%.

In 2012, the year President Obama faces re-election, unemployment will average 8.2%, the budget projects. It will be at 7.3% in 2013.

The average annual rate of unemployment in 2008 was 5.8%; President Obama’s budget does not anticipate a return to a level below that until 2016, when the budget projects 5.5% unemployment.

The average annual rate of unemployment in 2007, the year then-Sen. Obama launched his presidential campaign, was 4.6%.

The president doesn’t anticipate unemployment returning to that level at any point from now until 2020; the budget projects its lowest level of unemployment, 5.2%, in 2017, the year after he would end his second term, assuming he is re-elected. (Jake Tapper, “Bleak Unemployment Assumptions in Obama Budget,” ABC News, 2/4/10)

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