Economy Alarm: Jobless Recovery: Non-Partisan CBO Forecasts Higher Unemployment Than Predicted
|
Jobless Recovery: Non-Partisan CBO Forecasts Higher Unemployment Than Predicted Democrats Claim the Stimulus Has Created or Saved Over a Million Jobs “Vice President Joe Biden on Friday: The stimulus ‘is responsible for over 1 million jobs so far.’ “White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett on Oct. 18: The stimulus ‘really staved off a disaster and we saved millions of jobs around the country.’ “White House release June 2: ‘Just over 100 days in, over 150,000 jobs have been created or saved.’ “White House senior advisor David Axelrod on June 7: ‘The stimulus itself has produced hundreds of thousands of jobs.'” (“Inconsistent messages on Obama’s stimulus package,” The Los Angeles Times, 10/31/2009) Credibility Crash: Non-Partisan CBO Says “Country Has Not Yet Seen the Worst of Joblessness” CBO Director Elmendorf said today the country has not yet seen the worst of joblessness, despite some encouraging signs of economic growth. Speaking at the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis’ fall conference, Elmendorf said the CBO projection of this past summer, which saw the unemployment rate peaking at 10.5 percent next year, underestimated the autumn’s rise in jobless numbers. The rate hit 10.2 percent in October. “We are weighing our precise forecast going forward,” Elmendorf said, adding that the employment picture is expected to get worse before it gets better. CBO has forecast that it will take years before unemployment falls to a “sustainable” level of 5 percent, Elmendorf said, because the current jobless numbers are so high. “If one judges the pain of a recession by the excess of the unemployment rate over the long-run level … this picture is very clear that most of the pain of the recession is ahead of us, not behind us,” he said. His comments come as Democrats consider new legislation to stimulate job growth. House Speaker Pelosi last week said she would like to move a jobs package, which could consist of more than one bill, by Dec. 18. For their part, Senate Democratic leaders expect the chamber to focus on jobs legislation after concluding the debate on healthcare reform. Working outside the normal committee process, they have held meetings in recent weeks on the contents of the bill. Senate Majority Whip Durbin and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., are leading those talks. Durbin hosted a meeting last Friday with a group of Senate Democrats and Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s top economic adviser, on jobs legislation. A Senate aide said the meeting aimed to narrow down a list of more than 100 suggestions for job-growth measures…. (Humberto Sanchez and Dan Friedman, “Elmendorf Sees Even Bleaker Jobless Outlook,” National Journal: CongressDaily, 11/24/2009) To read the full article, click here. ### |