We needz dem.
The graph comes via The New York Times, and the news is as grim as it suggests. We lost 524,000 jobs in December. Half-a-million jobs in one month. Since the beginning of 2008, we've lost more than 2.8 million jobs. The unemployment rate is now 7.2 percent. The last time it hit that level was 1993, the tail-end of that recession.To make a crassly political point, the timing of recessions matters. One of the rarely-discussed factors in the failure of Clinton's early initiatives was that the recession that powered his candidacy abandoned his presidency. His early proposals were developed in a moment of acute economic anxiety -- when he took office, the unemployment rate was almost 8 percent, though the recession's peak had been a few month's earlier -- but by the time they made reached Congress, the recession had ended and the fears had eased. By 1994, the unemployment rate had returned to the low-6s and high-5s. Obama, conversely, is taking office just as the recession really hits, and will be selling his policies at the moment of maximum necessity.
The graph comes via The New York Times, and the news is as grim as it suggests. We lost 524,000 jobs in December. Half-a-million jobs in one month. Since the beginning of 2008, we've lost more than 2.8 million jobs. The unemployment rate is now 7.2 percent. The last time it hit that level was 1993, the tail-end of that recession.To make a crassly political point, the timing of recessions matters. One of the rarely-discussed factors in the failure of Clinton's early initiatives was that the recession that powered his candidacy abandoned his presidency. His early proposals were developed in a moment of acute economic anxiety -- when he took office, the unemployment rate was almost 8 percent, though the recession's peak had been a few month's earlier -- but by the time they made reached Congress, the recession had ended and the fears had eased. By 1994, the unemployment rate had returned to the low-6s and high-5s. Obama, conversely, is taking office just as the recession really hits, and will be selling his policies at the moment of maximum necessity. 
