Monday, April 5, 2010
The Latest Unemployment Numbers
4/05/2010
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment data for March last week. The unemployment rate remained 9.7 percent, which translates to over 15 million unemployed Americans. In fact the number of unemployed has grown by tens of thousands each month this year, but that is not enough to push the reporting percentage. If you are curious why the White House was celebrating those numbers, you are not alone. The only thing that comes to mind would be that the number did not go up, but their $787 billion (CBO estimated eventual cost estimate of $3.27 trillion) stimulus efforts were supposed to prevent unemployment from reaching 8%. Perhaps they are celebrating the transfer of jobs from the private to public sector?
As you can see the unemployment rate for March 2010 is higher than 2009 and much higher than 2007 and 2008. What is interesting about this data is who is being impacted the most from this administration’s economic policies. Democrats have received the majority of the young voters age 18 – 29, in the last three general elections. Obama grabbed 66% of the age 18 – 29 votes in 2008. Obama also received 95% of the black vote and benefited from 4.9% increase in black voter turnout. In fact, black women made up the greatest voter turnout in the election with 68.8%. One has to wonder if Obama will get the same level of support from black voters and young voters in the next election. With unemployment approaching 20% for black males over 20, over 40% for blacks age 16 – 19, and nearly 24% for whites 16 – 19, these voters might be looking for some more change in November 2010 and 2012.
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