October: 9.6 percent.
September: 9.6 percent.
August: 9.6 percent.
July: 9.5 percent.
June: 9.5 percent.
May: 9.7 percent.
April: 9.9 percent.
March: 9.7 percent.
February: 9.7 percent.
January: 9.7 percent.
That list of numbers -- from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics -- gives the grim monthly percentages of unemployment in the United States so far this year.
"Percentages" aren't "people," though. To put the figures in perspective, somewhere between 14 million and 16 million Americans who want to be employed have been without work in any given month this year -- and many have been unable to find work for months on end.
Another way to look at it is that the number of Americans listed monthly as unemployed is not too far short of the total number of men, women and children in Tennessee and Georgia -- combined.
Alarmingly, that "official" count does not include millions more Americans who have given up the search for work or who need full-time jobs to support their families but can get only part-time work. So joblessness, when added to so-called "underemployment," is actually much higher than the official unemployment rate alone.
And yet, even with voters overwhelmingly rejecting the economic policies of the Obama administration in the recent congressional elections, the president has not made any resolute about-face on those policies.
There has been only vague talk so far from the administration about possibly extending all the Bush tax cuts -- which desperately needs to be done to remove small businesses' uncertainty and encourage them to invest in job creation.
And the president has yet to really acknowledge that the "stimulus" -- which he said would keep unemployment below 8 percent -- has failed, and that it should not be followed with still more unproductive "stimulus" spending. Instead, Obama seems likely to continue pushing for more deficit spending as a supposed cure for the ongoing economic crisis.
He seems to believe the economy would magically turn around if only the current, unsustainable national debt of $13.6 trillion were hundreds of billions of dollars bigger from additional federal spending.
It is hard to understand that reasoning in the face of persistently high unemployment and the obvious failure of budget-busting spending to boost the economy thus far.
The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives and the strengthened GOP minority in the Senate should promptly put the brakes on wasteful government spending -- and should fight for continued tax relief for all Americans who pay taxes.