State Of The Union: Unemployment, Economy, Voter Approval Index

by Rory Cripps | June 12, 2010 at 01:36 pm

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The U.S. unemployment rate was 9.7 percent for May. There are currently about 15 million Americans unemployed. Were it not for the addition of 413,000 temporary Census 2010 workers, hired by the federal government, the rate would be about 10 percent.

The private sector added 41,000 new jobs in May. 31,000 of which were temporary worker jobs. Those that the government have counted as unemployed have been unemployed for an average of 34.4 weeks. 46 percent have been unemployed for 24 weeks or longer and 60.7 percent have been unemployed for 15 weeks or longer.

America's Economy A Train Wreck: It's Rice And Beans From Here Out

28 Months Of Recession In U.S.

There are approximately 1.2 million new workers entering the job market each month.

When retired workers and workers that have left the work force for whatever reason are figured into the equation it requires the creation of more than 200,000 new jobs per month just to absorb those workers entering the work force for the first time.

The latest U.S. trade deficit figures (for April) show that the U.S. imports $40.3 billion more in goods and services than it exports. This is up $0.3 billion from $40 billion in March. The goods deficit with China increased from $16.9 billion in March to $19.3 billion in April.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) stood at 3 percent in the first quarter of 2010. Down 2.6 percent from the 2009 fourth quarter of 5.6 percent. The 2.6 percent decline in GDP was a result of a sharp slowdown in inventory investment and a slowdown in export growth, residential housing, and business investment in equipment and software.

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports survey of likely voters, 27 percent of voters strongly approve of the way President Obama is doing his job and 42 percent strongly disapprove giving Obama a minus 15 percent voter approval rating.

Polls Show Americans Not Confident In Obama And Congress

65 percent of voters and likely voters say that the country is better off if the entire congress is thrown out this November. In May, the number of adults nationwide identifying themselves as Democrats fell nearly one percentage point to tie the lowest level on record. Republican candidates now hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, June 6.

While solid majorities of Democrats and Republicans support their own party, the plurality (42%) of voters not affiliated with either major party now prefer the Republican candidate, while 18% like the Democrat. These findings have remained fairly consistent for months now. That’s up slightly from a week ago and broadly consistent with weekly results from the past year.

56 percent of U.S. voters say their views on illegal immigration are closer to those of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer than to the views of President Obama.

64 percent believe the federal government by failing to enforce immigration law is more to blame for the current controversy over Arizona’s new statute than state officials are for passing it. 79 percent of voters believe the U.S. military should be used on the country's southern border to stop illegal immigration from Mexico.

58 percent of voters favor repeal of the health care bill while 35 percent are opposed to repeal.

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Rory Cripps

at 15:23 on June 12th, 2010

Letemdangle: More than likely. People are pretty pissed off over the state of the union. And illegal immigration has a lot to do with it. What we have here in America is a politically correct government that doesn't give a crap about American citizens. It is oh so painfully obvious. And every American should be outraged.

YankeeJim

at 15:30 on June 12th, 2010

RC, the mess we have is a compound one, started by Bush and now added to by Obama. Congress and the President don't know anything about the free enterprise system and how to promote commercial production. That is at the heart of it.

Grace H

at 06:28 on June 13th, 2010

This mess had the seeds sowed by Reagan and Bush Sr. Clinton did nothing really. Then Bush dear God put some time of fertilizer on it all via the Wars and fear-mongering.

People are idiots. They forget these problems go way back. They act like this shit happened over night. It is the exact same as the Great Depression. Terrible credit system, misappropriation of funds, and blatant exploitation by those in charge lead to this.

We should be outraged that we have a government system designed to fail. That we have a figurehead leader instead of someone who can take charge and show mettle. We should be angry that Congress is more concerned with the lobbyists who fork over money than the people they swear to serve. We should be furious that they value their own perceived status and wellbeing (eg. re-election) over the needs of a country. Of a thousand (if even) over tens of millions. That we should be furious about.

The Tea Party and certainly Sara Palin (lipstick on a pig anyone) is not the answer. Liberalism is not the answer. They get us no where but a hung jury. We have created an elitist class with our government and now we are seeing its ugly side rear its head. Voting will get us no where. Protesting will get us no where. We are at the point where drastic change seems paramount. Of how it will happen we must be wary. This country was born on the backs of violence and struggle, and I fear it may go down the same way. We must be vigilant. We the people. Never forget those words came first.

Rory Cripps

at 09:25 on June 13th, 2010

Grace H: Could you please provide some hard facts and evidence to support your contention that. " This mess had the seeds sowed by Reagan and Bush Sr."?

I hear that crap all the time and no one has yet been able to substantiate the assertion. What about Jimmy Carter prior to Reagan when interest rates across the board were equivalent to today's credit card rates and inflation was in the double-digits? And it was the Democratic party by the way that removed all credit controls at the time. What about W. Bush's two terms in office when the unemployment rate throughout most of his presidency was at nearly historical lows? What about FDR who presided over the Great Depression which went on for over a decade and only ended as a result of WWII?

The facts are that America has experienced troughs and peaks in the economy for centuries. However this particular downturn happens to be one of the worst. And there are many reasons for that not the least of which is that both the Democrats and the Republicans fell asleep at the switch. Both parties are to blame and there is much hard evidence to support that contention.

Grace H

at 10:16 on June 13th, 2010

Jimmy Carter is arguably among the worst presidents in history. FDR responded to the will of the people. He took action because the populace wanted action. Afterward Congress stripped many of the powers that allotted for that course of action.

It is true we can directly trace our current situation back to FDR and his many programs. That is because the root of the problems were never solved. We still have insipid credit systems that manipulate the consumer into lulls of security and ability to afford any egregious item they want.

Reagan -- had some of the worst deficits. also, began the exuberant spending we now find common place and synanamous.

Bush Sr -- the "War on Drugs," the fear-mongering, the cultural attitude.

My point moreover is that it is not merely Bush's fault or Obama's fault. That there are deep rooted issues that must be exposed and rectified.

I speak of our current issues. It is less the governments fault than it is the people who abuse credit. As for both parties that was the entirety of my point. Party politics will never work because they are more obsessed with power than governance. Beating each other is the ultimate struggle, the highest goal. We have been made aware of this from the beginning and yet we seem to ignore this.

Rory Cripps

at 10:40 on June 13th, 2010

Grace: There were a number of reasons why there were deficits under Reagan. And one of the main reasons--which no one seems to know about or bring up--is that prior to his presidency (under the Carter Administration) inflation was running rampant and the Federal Reserve (under Paul Volcker) underwent dramatic actions to tighten the money supply and put the breaks on the inflationary spiral. People were going crazy buying all sorts of crap that they didn't need because prices kept rising every day. Gold, diamonds, jewelry, paintings, etc. It was buy now, because it's going to cost a lot more tomorrow! The Democrats in congress willingly passed legislation that essentially allowed credit rates to hit the roof, savings and loan banks to fail, and so on and so forth. But in spite of all the tightening on the part of the Federal Reserve, the only ones that were affected were the average American. Not the big financial institutions, because those institutions simply borrowed money overseas at lower credit rates.

It is true that many people bought homes, etc that they couldn't afford. But they did so because the home market just kept going up and up and they simply (and in many cases rationally) assumed that home prices would continue to rise. Little did they know that financial institutions such as Goldman Sacks were hedging that the real estate market would collapse yet Goldman never let on to the unsuspecting public.

ishambat

at 22:13 on June 13th, 2010

"There were a number of reasons why there were deficits under Reagan."Actually there was only one: Reagan replacing tax-and-spend with borrow-and-spend.
It got worse under Bush Jr. with fully Republican Congress, as he tried to play Reagan by re-instituting borrow-and-spend policies after Clinton administration, painstakingly and at great cost to itself, restored fiscal sanity.

Rory Cripps

at 15:44 on June 12th, 2010

Jim: Thanks for your rec. It is a freakin' mess! We have experienced the longest recession since the Great Depression. People just don't seem to get it! We are suffering the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. In a sense, that's good. And I only say that because people that are out of work have time on their hands and time to think about how the U.S. government has been screwing them every which way from Sunday. The idiots in government--both the Dems and the Repubs--are so out of touch with the sentiments of the America voter that it's astounding. And what I'm really afraid of is voter sentiments swinging so far to the right that it will take decades and major shifts in demographics to get it back anywhere near the center.

Rory Cripps

at 10:22 on June 13th, 2010

Letemdangle: Those that are for strict gun control and repeal of the second amendment invariably put forth the argument that the second amendment only applied to peasants with pitch forks, six-shooters, and double-barrel shotguns during America's founding days. They claim that an armed insurrection on the part of American citizens is impossible because of all the sophisticated and heavy weapons that the U.S. military has. Well shut up and hush my mouth!

A lot of good the U.S. military's "sophisticated and heavy weapons" are doing against the insurgents in Afghanistan that have no where near the fire-power that the U.S. military has. LMAO! And what about the peasants with pitch-forks that went up against British troops--the world's most powerful military at the time--during the American Revolution? The patriots prevailed, didn't they? And they prevailed in spite of the fact that about 1/3 the population supported the British and another 1/3 was indifferent to the cause.

If 20 million American gun owners--and there's a lot more than that--got together and said screw the government, the only way for the U.S. government to prevail would be for the president to issue orders to carpet-bomb the entire country into submission killing every man, woman, and child, that stood in the way. And even at that, it probably wouldn't work. Just look at how effective those tactics were in Vietnam.

René

at 10:34 on June 13th, 2010

Rory, whatever the spin on the phrase, I do NOT find our govt. 'politically correct' at all.

more like 'politically disconnected'.

as far as tracing our problems back to the root, try the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, or go even further back to Abraham Lincoln and his National Bank Act to finance the Civil War which destroyed half the country and killed 100s of thousands.

Rory Cripps

at 12:14 on June 13th, 2010

Rene: YES! As always we're on the same page. The Federal Reserve Act passed during the Wilson Administration. An autonomous branch of the government presided over by private banking interests that doesn't have to pay property taxes. How's that for a contradiction? A big bank that's not subject to audits.

If the Federal reserve actually did what it was set up to do I probably wouldn't have a problem with its establishment. However--and as I've pointed out many, many, times before--there is absolutely no economic and statistical evidence to suggest that it has benefited the U.S. economy or that it has provided a positive influence on the U.S. monetary system. If it had, we wouldn't have experienced the Great Depression, nor what we are currently experiencing. There are a lot of economic ignoramuses out there and it should scare the crap out of the rest of us.