Harry Reid says (and I quote):

Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.

Now that is compassion as expressed by a true liberal. Reid is talking about the “good” news that official (i.e., government numbers) unemployment held steady at 9.7 percent in February. Underemployment, which includes people so beaten down by months of frustration of not being able to find a job that they have recently given up even looking, rose from 16.5 percent to 16.8 percent.

Similarly, the U6 number which includes everyone who wants a full-time job but has given up looking for one, ticked upward in February, once again approaching 22 percent.

But even Reid’s “good news” number is a lie:

Of course, were it not for automatic “seasonal adjustments” incorporated by the U.S. Department of Labor a month ago, the unemployment rate in January would have risen to 10.6 percent, and the “underemployment rate” – which includes people who are so depressed with the job market that they’ve given up searching for work – would have climbed to 18 percent.

How long will this last?

Economists think it could take until the middle of the decade for the rate to drop back to a normal 5.5 percent to 6 percent.

One in ten workers looking for a job can’t find one. One in five workers that want a job can’t find one. How’s that “stimulus” working out for ya?

And Reid thinks this is “good news”? Reid should consult an economist.

“Eight months into the much-touted recovery, the economy should be adding jobs not just losing jobs at a slower pace,” University of Maryland economist Peter Morici wrote in an analysis.

“No study of economic history could yield a conclusion other than that the US economy (walks) along the precipice of a double dip recession.” . . .

Economist Michael Pento, of Delta Global Advisors in Parsippany, N.J., said the better-than-expected jobs number was boosted primarily by the 15,000 Census workers hired and does nothing to mask what he considers the near-certainty that the second half of the year will see another leg down for the economy.

“We still haven’t created any jobs. They can’t get any loans, their incomes are down and they face much higher taxes in 2011 and higher interest rates,” Pento said in an interview. “I don’t know why anybody would think anything else. If I’m wrong I’ll fall down and build a shrine to John Maynard Keynes.”

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: Harry Reid, False Liberal Compassion, Unemployment, Underemployment, U3, U6, Destruction of the American Economy, Stimulus and Other Failed Tax and Spend Liberal Brainfarts, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice