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back to article Unemployment rate inches up in the US

Economists were not expecting for the US economy to create a lot of jobs in June, but they did reckon north of 100,000 workers, net of layoffs, would be added to the labor pool last month. They guessed wrong. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy only added 18,000 jobs, less than one-tenth the amount needed …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Here's what I find funny about this

    The repubs will lose no time fustigating Obama over not bringing unemployment down, while conveniently overlooking the fact that one large reason is that government employment dropped; one of THEIR key missions in life.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Facepalm

      Could always restimulate

      If the analysis is to be believed, each stimulus job "created or saved" cost $280,000 US. Those cut govt workers could be put back on the job for the bargain price of $10,640,000,000

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Mushroom

      Here's what I find funny about this (Take two)

      The liberals will waste no time in pulling an excuse out of their ass as to why employment rates aren't getting better.

      Blaming this on the loss of government jobs is absolute bullshit. As per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for government workers is lower than every other industry (with the exception of self-employed persons): http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t14.htm. Are you really going to tell me that that sector made the difference? Sure, it didn't help, but it isn't the underlying reason that you would like to have us believe.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC

    Okay, so you want to fix unemployment by creating more worthless government jobs, whose salary will be paid for by larger taxes, costing more businesses money who are forced to recoup their costs by RIFing employees, etc. Rinse, repeat.

    Sounds like a great idea!

    How about they slash tons and tons of useless government jobs, thereby letting them reduce taxes, and letting people use that money for better things!

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      re: restimulating

      Nope, that really isn't what I was saying at all. Solid growth in the private sector is the only way to reduce unemployment and increase tax receipts. The stimulus was a joke. Turn up the sarcasm meter!

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The U.S. is FUBARed

    Economically and politicall the U.S. is FUBARed. White collar criminals, many who hold political office, are profiting while everyone else pays for their crimes.

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  4. skeptical i
    Meh

    I believe "unemployment" = "people receiving unemployment bennies and/or involved with jobs bureaus"

    while people who have given up, are working part-time, are working under-the-table, et cetera are not part of the total (meaning the actual situation is worse).

    And P.S. to AC 08-JUL-2011 18:58: not only do repubs not equate cuts in government jobs as part of the unemployment problem, many of them are also bought and sold by companies who use less-than-honorable employment practices (like keeping workers /JUST/ under what constitutes "full time" to avoid paying for benefits), send jobs overseas, and so on. (I can tell how old some of my clothes are when I see a "made in USA" tag -- how sad is THAT?)

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  5. Sandra Greer
    Devil

    Second Great Depression

    When we studied the Great Depression in school, nobody could explain how it happened. Like, why did there all of a sudden stop being employment for so many people? It was like explaining how a guy could be alive and then suddenly dead. What left him?

    What President Roosevelt (FDR) did was try to employ as many people as possible in government jobs under programs like WPA. It wasn't enough, though. The way the depression ended was with Extreme Government Employment, also known as World War II. There was so much employment available that they had to hire WOMEN (imagine that!).

    Throughout, the Republicans hated FDR and referred to him as "that man in the White House", with "man" probably a euphemism.

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