Economists were expecting Friday’s job report from the government to be good news. In fact, they predicted a gain of 40,000 to 50,000 jobs. But it looks like they will be disappointed:

The data from payroll processor Automatic Data Processing Inc. and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers showed a loss of 23,000 jobs in the private sector, in contrast to the forecast of an increase of 50,000 jobs for March.

These numbers only include private sector jobs, whereas Friday’s non-farm payrolls report will include government workers — like the recent hiring of temporary census workers. In fact, the non-adjusted forecast (which include temporary government workers) were through the roof:

The ADP survey tallies only private-sector jobs, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ nonfarm payrolls data include government workers. The addition of workers for the 2010 census is expected to lift federal payrolls.

The median forecast for March nonfarm payrolls is for a gain of 200,000 following a loss of 36,000 in February. The unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 9.7%.

Ah, your tax dollars at work. Unfortunately, your tax dollars don’t seem to be improving the economy.

Tomorrow, another question looms. How will the Fed’s exit from the mortgage buying program affect mortgage prices and interest rates? Probably not much, but it would be best to keep a watch on things.

Technorati Tags: Declining Jobs in America, Rising Unemployment in America, Bankrupting America, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

From Rasmussen, 78% Expect Middle Class Tax Hike To Pay For Health Care Reform.

With almost 25 percent real unemployment, is it any wonder that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to start over?

Technorati Tags: Socialized Medicine, Crushing the Middle Class with Taxes, Rising Unemployment, ObamaCare and Other Bad Ideas

Shelby County garnered $478 million as a result of the federal government’s foolish attempt to tax and spend their way out of the recession. The result of the government’s largess (at taxpayer expense) has been 346 jobs saved or created.

That’s right, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) monies distributed in Shelby County have saved or created 346 jobs at a cost of about $1,381,503 each.

Call me silly, but I’d prefer you just give me the million and I’ll live off the interest and leave the rest to my kids. You can keep your job.

Statewide, Tennessee is expected to get almost $6b, which is projected to save or create 10,300 jobs. A little simple math tells us that each job only costs the American taxpayer $582,524. Again, I’m thinking that would make a very nice nest egg to carry me through the recession until the free market starts generating real jobs.

What’s that? The free market can’t create jobs under the crushing burden of trillions of dollars of additional national debt? And how is the government tax-and-giveaway supposed to help that? It isn’t? Isn’t anyone thinking ahead?

Oh yeah. Just to the next election cycle.

Time for term limits. And Fair Tax.

Technorati Tags: ARRA, Stimulous and Other Failures, Free Market, Fair Tax, Rising Unemployment, Destroying the American Economy, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

The Investor’s Business Daily has an excellent analysis of the efficacy of the “stimulus.” First, what the money actually accomplished:

In reality, as the CBO explains, “five programs accounted for more than 80% of the outlays from ARRA in 2009: Medicaid, unemployment compensation, Social Security … grants to state and local governments … and student aid.”

In other words, what was labeled a “stimulus” bill was actually a stimulus to government transfer payments — cash and benefits that are primarily rewards for not working, or at least not working too hard.

Then the damage done:

From the CBO figures, it appears that 39% to 44% of the $862 billion will be for increased transfer payments, including refundable tax credits (checks to people who don’t pay taxes).

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 had extended federally funded unemployment benefits by 53 weeks, and another bill in November added 20 more — bringing the total up to 99 weeks in states with high unemployment.

As the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee minutes for January noted: “The several extensions of emergency unemployment insurance benefits appeared to have raised the measured unemployment rate, relative to levels recorded in past downturns, by encouraging some who have lost their jobs to remain in the labor force. … Some estimates suggested it could account for 1 percentage point or more of the increase in the unemployment rate during this recession.”

My own estimate, in past articles available at cato.org, is that the stimulus act added about 2 percentage points to the unemployment rate.

Roosevelt’s New Deal extended the Great Depression by years. Obama’s Great Giveaway has done the same. Watch out for the double dip.

Technorati Tags: Stimulus and Other Failed Big Government Initiatives, Destruction of the American Economy, Rising Unemployment, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

American Observer has an awesome animation of county-by-county unemployment beginning in January 2007 through December 2009.

HT to TMF Global Gains.

Technorati Tags: Rising Unemployment, Destruction of the American Economy, Bush Legacy, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

500 US workers were fired today in the US. This is on top of the 10,400 jobs lost last year in the US and Canada. Next up: Europe and Asia.

Expenses for workforce reductions at IBM will probably be about the same this year as in the past two years, according to a person familiar with the plans. Work has shifted overseas as IBM coped with sales drops in three of the past four quarters. Most of the restructuring costs this year will be from Europe and Asia, said the person, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public.

Technorati Tags: IBM, Layoffs, Job Losses, Destruction of the American Economy, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

In a stunning exhibition of truth in politics, Obama’s economic report to Congress admitted that unemployment rates could continue to be high even after the economy starts adding jobs. Obama’s team optimistically predicts 95,000 new jobs per month through 2010:

But the report also said that the unemployment rate may not come down much from the current level of 9.7 percent, and may even rise because of labor market growth and the return of more discouraged workers to the labor force.

The White House forecast, most of which was previously released with budget documents, calls for growth in gross domestic product of around 3.0 percent in 2010 and an average unemployment rate of 10.0 percent.   . . .

“Indeed, it is possible that the rate will rise for a while as some discouraged workers return to the labor force, before starting to generally decline. Consistent with this, employment growth is projected to be roughly equal to normal trend growth of about 100,000 per month.”

Checking ShadowStats, we see that true unemployment (which includes both short-term and long-term discouraged workers) is still over 21%. As more jobs become available, more of these workers will start filling them. So the artificially low numbers that the government uses to report unemployment will remain in the 10% range.

Technorati Tags: Rising Unemployment in America, True Unemployment vs Government Lies, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

From ABC News comes the disturbing (but hardly surprising) news that the “overwhelming majority” of our taxpayer-funded stimulus money dedicated to wind power has gone to foreign companies.

Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines. . . .

“According to our estimates, about 6,000 jobs have been created overseas, and maybe a couple hundred have been created in the U.S.”

Further outrages at the end of the story. Go. Read. Angerize yourself. Write your congressman.

Technorati Tags: Rising Unemployment in America, Wrecking the American Economy, Wasteful Government Spending, Stimulus and Other Bad Ideas, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

38.2 million Americans are now using food stamps:

USDA estimates up to $58 billion will be spent on food stamps this fiscal year, which ends Sept 30, with average enrollment of 40.5 million people. Food stamps were renamed the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program in 2008.

Must be all the “stimulus” I keep hearing about.

Technorati Tags: Ruination of the American Economy, Food Stamps, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

The Obama administration is forecasting 9.8% unemployment by the end of the year, barely down from where it now stands.

Those predictions are in line forecasts from independent economists. The administration is predicting 8.9 percent unemployment at the end of 2011, and 7.9 unemployment percent by the end of 2012.

Given how wrong the Obama’s administration has been in predicting unemployment to date, we should all be afraid.

Technorati Tags: Ballooning Unemployment, Jobless Recovery and Other Liberal Myths, Bankrupting America, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice