The latest news on the economy is very disconcerting, as we saw the smallest job growth in eleven months, 69,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate inching up to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent.
According to economists, the Great Recession started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, and we are now into three years of “economic recovery”. After losing 7 million jobs, we have regained 4.2 million of them in the past three years.
Economic statistics can be used to prove or disprove any point. Obviously, the economy is a big problem, and Republican nominee Mitt Romney banks on that, and keeps on hammering it home, and will do that even more with the new economic figures.
But it is also important to realize that the economic recovery, the slowest since World War II, could also be seen in a different perspective, that the Great Recession has never really ended, and that the Republican opposition, by resisting any jobs legislation in the past year and a half, when they have controlled the House of Representatives, has massively contributed to it.
There is plenty of blame to go around, and Barack Obama and the Democrats must share the blame, but to claim that the GOP has no responsibility is ridiculous, and those who would claim that a President McCain would have had a better economic record must be smoking something that promotes delusions!
And the good aspect of the economic problem is that in seven of the ten “swing states” that the Obama Victory Fund contributes funds from sale of merchandise, the unemployment rate is lower, often substantially lower than in the nation at large.
This includes the following:
Iowa 5.1%
New Hampshire 5.0%
Virginia 5.6%
Wisconsin 6.7%
Ohio 7.4%
Pennsylvania 7.4%
Colorado 7.9%
The unemployment rate is higher in:
Florida 8.7%
North Carolina 9.4%
Nevada 11.7%
It should also be pointed out that in 34 states out of 50, two thirds, the unemployment rate is lower than the national average.
So Mitt Romney using the issue of unemployment in seven of the ten”swing states” is not going to ring as genuine, and if Obama wins those seven states, he can lose Florida, North Carolina, and Nevada, and still win a second term handily!