Despite some hopes/signs that the economy may be improving, the job market continues to get worse:
The pace of job losses quickened in June after slowing just a month earlier, casting a shadow over the Obama administration’s attempts to stanch months of declines in the labor market.
The American economy shed 467,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent from 9.4 percent, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. Job losses were widespread among the construction, manufacturing and business and professional services sectors.
The losses were sharply higher than economists’ expectations of 365,000 lost jobs.
Economists said a decline of 322,000 jobs in May had raised expectations that the market was bottoming out as the economy struggled to right itself, but the numbers on Friday dashed some of those hopes.
The figures also raised questions about whether the Obama administration, which has already passed a $787 billion stimulus plan, needed to step in again to shore up the American worker.
“The stimulus has probably stabilized income, but it has not moved the economy forward,” said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corporation. “It’s a finger in the dike. But in terms of getting the economy going, there’s no evidence of that yet.”
So, let me get this straight.
We spent $ 700 billion that we don’t have and it hasn’t improved the economy in an appreciable respect, so the solution is to spend more money we don’t have ?
Yea, I don’t get it either.
Nothing “they” can do about it, except maybe make it worse. It’s going to keep rising until maybe late ‘10-early ‘11. Every other recession in recent history had rising unemployment for 2-3 years. No reason to believe this will be different, just because magical-thinking flunkies in the gov’t say it will.