With all the Obama administration’s assurances that our nation is in recovery, it may come as a shock to many Americans that the unemployment rate has gone up yet again.
The Labor Department reports that in June, unemployment rose to 9.2 percent. It was 9.1 percent in May.
There was weak hiring or even job losses across many sectors of the economy. In our nation of more than 300 million people, only 18,000 jobs were created in June. But just to keep up with population growth and avoid higher unemployment, our country needs to create about seven times that many jobs each month!
Unfortunately, the Obama administration and many members of Congress continue to threaten to raise taxes, and the implementation of ObamaCare socialized medicine is imposing a regulatory burden on business. Those factors are discouraging companies to hire and expand.
Here is how commentator Victor Davis Hanson put it: “The more [the president] talks of stimulating the economy – with subsidies to ‘green’ industries, government take-over of private enterprise, massive annual deficits and federal hiring, cash for clunkers, etc. – the less the private sector seems to hire or invest. … [H]undreds of thousands of employers have sized up this quite extraordinary administration and concluded that it does not particularly like those who make over $200-250K per year, and does not appreciate or even know much about private employers. And thus the business community has collectively decided to sit tight, keep quiet, and store up cash” until a new president is elected.
That is a frightening prospect, because Obama will be in office at least another year and a half, and possibly four years beyond that.
Eliminating undue regulations and ending the talk of tax increases could go a long way toward boosting job creation and our economy in general. But sadly there is little likelihood that the president and Democrats in Congress will do either of those things.