Many analysts appear to agree with President Obama’s assertion that there is a silver lining to the Department of Labor’s recent report that the unemployment rate is at a 26-year high.
This is because April was the third month in a row in which the number of job losses did not raise. Additionally, fewer jobs were lost in April than in any other month in the last six years.
“Prior to February, job losses had accelerated for six months in a row. Last month’s loss was the smallest since October. wrote David Leonhardt on the New York Times’ Economix blog.
However, a total of 540,000 additional jobs were lost last month; the unemployment rate increased from 8.5 to 8.9 percent. This fact was not highlighted in mainstream news Reuters headline about their story in the report: “The United States is cutting the fewest jobs in months.”
“U.S. government data on Friday that signaled the economy’s sharp decline may be easing and gave a boost to the stock market,” wrote Reuters reporter Lucia Mutikani: “U.S. employers laid off 539,000 workers last month, the fewest since October.
Mutikani’s assessment fully agrees with Obama, who said the country has a “long way to go,” but the situation appears to be improving.
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for the Republican Study Committee, did not share Obama’s optimism.
“In any case, 540,000 Americans out of work in a month is nothing to celebrate. “If the White House judges the success of its economic plan by whether job losses are greater than the highest in history, we will be in for a long recovery,” he said.
“Is this the urgent economic recovery the President had in mind when he borrowed a trillion dollars from our grandchildren?” asked Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.). “Every week that passes is more evidence that heavy government borrowing and spending is a counterproductive way to stimulate the economy.”
Republican John Boehner (Ohio) blames Obama’s approach to the economy for the ongoing job losses.
“About two and a half million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the year, and yet some here in Washington still believe that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity,” Boehner said.
