President Downgrade Grasping At Straws On Jobs

I was hoping this Georgia jobs training problem would be dismissed by the feds, but apparently I failed to factor in how desperate this empty suit in the White House is to appear to be doing something about employment in the country without blaming all of his feel good economy destroying plans.

CNN is stepping up to the plate to provide some cover and is another example of how media can report facts while painting a different picture from what the reality is. This little bit is from the CNN article.

Since the inception of Georgia Works in 2003, more than 23,000 participants have completed training programs at more than 16,500 employers. A quarter of them were hired at the firm by the end of the eight weeks, while nearly 60% were employed somewhere within three months of completing the program, state labor officials said.

Sounds great, right? Until you discover that the unemployment rate in Georgia has been above the national average for about 18 straight months. Current state unemployment rate is 10.1% while in Atlanta it is around 10.4%. Now look at the little phrase I put in bold. Notice it uses the year 2003 as a starting point. The program is far less effective then that since President Downgrade has taken over.

New Labor Commissioner Mark Butler, who took office in January, swiftly reinstated the original rules. Since then 1,400 people have received training, 197 of whom were hired.

That works out to about 1 in 10 actually getting a job. The state actually suspended the program for a while because of the cost, something Barry O never worries about, but should be a warning to taxpayers everywhere.

Whatever its value, the program has proved too costly for the state to sustain in the face of Georgia's stubbornly high unemployement. In September, [2010] Thurmond opened up the program to anyone who registered with DOL for employment services. Before that, it had been limited to people receiving unemployment compensation.

The fact is there isn't any jobs to be had, regardless of how much training you have. That little fact seems to keep slapping the eggheads in Washington upside the head but they still can't figure it out. They would rather halt energy production in west Texas to preserve a lizard or ruin the farming industry by forcing farmers to get CDL licenses or cutting off their water to save a fish or raid guitar manufacturers who don't make the right political donations.

High Stakes Moonbat Wager: Warren Buffett Bets Peter Orszag $1 That Unemployment Drops Below 8% By Election Day

No fair. Orszag rigged the bet in his favor.

Blame the Weather: Unemployment Claims 'Unexpectedly' Surge

Yeah, it's the weather or something.

Initial claims for U.S. state unemployment benefits rose by an unexpected 51,000 to 454,000 in the January 22 week, a level not seen since the October 30 week of last year when claims came in at 459,000, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.

A Labor Department analyst said the large increase in seasonally adjusted claims was due to two reasons. The first is the "normal" seasonal factor volatility, the second is that four states reported an increase in claims "that was due to snow effects."

Much easier to blame the weather rather than Obama's failed economic policies. But the state of the union is strong or something. It'll be curious what kind of snow job the media will come up with when the weather improves and job numbers do not.

Curious how this was the same excuse used last February.

Yes, This Exists: The 'Keith Olbermann for White House Press Secretary' Facebook Page

The page has a whopping 19 'likes' so far - which may sound pathetic, until you consider the fact that it actually represents Olbermann's entire 'Countdown' audience.

What's next - a Daily Kos diary post imploring this pompous hatemonger to consider running for U.S. Senate?

Oh my.



Cross-posted.

McConnell Says Deal With Obama on Tax Rates is Close, and All GOP Has to Agree to Is Never-Ending* Unemployment Benefits

*Seriously. When does it end?

One would assume that Mitch McConnell is well aware that Republicans won in a landslide last month.

But stuff like this makes me wonder.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sounded optimistic on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that Republicans will come to an agreement with President Barack Obama that would allow current income tax rates to continue for a few years while also extending unemployment payments for people whose benefits are set to run out.

So, the Republicans are making compromises with Barack Obama just to maintain the status freakin' quo on tax rates?

May I ask why?

Unemployment benefits have already been extended to an unprecedented 99 weeks. By my math, that's nearly two years. If we're going to keep extending it, let's just be honest and start calling it what it is - welfare.

It's certainly not economic stimulus or a jobs program - otherwise, why isn't the economy roaring by now?

Cross-posted.

Long Term Unemployed A Protected Class?

The term protected class is another one of those handy euphemism hoisted upon us like pro choice. Examples of a protected class include minorities, union members and Democrat voters. Mr Hank "Guam is Sinking" Johnson is looking into a proposal coming out of the fevered swamps of far left progressives that the long term unemployed should be added to the list of entities on the protected class list.

Depending on what the EEOC does, Johnson's staff tells me he's considering introducing legislation that could add employment status as one of the protected classes under the Civil Rights Act.

Oh yeah there is the usual race card being played also, but what else do any of these African American Dems have in their toolbox. Unless they can gin up enough white guilt by equating everything from the material in disposable diapers to starving polar bears to some sort of civil rights violation they have nothing.

There's also a race issue here. According to Johnson, some companies' "unemployed need not apply" rules can have a particularly adverse affect on minorities.

With each passing day the Democrats are stripping all the incentives to be productive citizens away and replacing it with dependency on big government. Do I have sympathy for the unemployed? You bet I do. Been there, done that. The facts are however that today there is very little motivation for someone to get off their butt and do any serious job hunting. Granted most companies are afraid to hire nowadays because the cost of hiring somebody has gotten so restrictive and they have adapted to the new environment of managing to get business done with reduced staffing, arguably because demand isn't there to warrant higher level of staffings. In the uncertain business climate being created in Washington I don't fault the business owners as much as I do those that just can't get it through their thick skulls that if they would get out of the way this economy probably would have started turning around a long time ago. The more they stimulate, bailout, and create one fancy program after another the longer it will take to get things moving in a positive direction. While the arguments offered from the Dems about the current tax rates seem to boil down to wanting to soak the rich, the logical conclusion of this reasoning is that I guess everybody is supposed to get a job from a homeless guy living in the park. There is nothing stopping any of these people who want to send more money to Washington from writing a check and sending it to them. Instead of berating people who don't want to pay higher taxes whip out your checkbook and instead of sending the money to some liberal political action group send it to Congress. We'll both feel better and it has a certain ring of fairness to it.

Oh and Washington there would be no need to raise taxes if you would cut spending, and yes the kids are going to whine about having their allowance cut but guess what. We'll adapt and overcome just like we always do. If they would have done the Social Security changes a decade ago we would have removed that from their fear mongering tactics. I will never forgive AARP and the senior citizens, who would not have been affected by the legislation in the slightest way, for screwing it up for my generation. Just like the west coast liberals who want everybody to pay for their alcohol and drug rehab and sex change operations have now screwed up the medical system in this country.

Sherrod Brown: Unemployment Benefits Stimulate the Economy Because People Can Use Those Crumbs to Pay For Necessities...Like Property Taxes

Gee, Sherrod Brown really knows how to sell the sizzle, doesn't he?

But his hypothetical example here is preposterous.

As if anyone could pay their property tax bill with a measly unemployment check!

"The other reason to maintain unemployment benefits is all economics. Senator McCain, when he was candidate for President, his chief economic advisor said the best way to grow the economy - the best stimulus dollar you can spend - is unemployment insurance. Because when you put a dollar in a laid-off worker's pocket from Lima, Ohio or Zanesville, Ohio she will spend it at the local grocery store, the local shoe store, pay her property tax, pay her gas bill, whatever. That money is recycled in the economy."

Why the unemployment rate has risen to and remains stuck near 10% - despite the fact that unemployment benefits have been extended to a ridonkulous 99 weeks - is a question Sen. Brown never gets around to answering.

Via The Right Scoop. Cross-posted.

SHOCKER: Harry Reid's Tenure As Senate Majority Leader Coincides With Soul-Crushing Unemployment in Nevada

No doubt it's Bush's fault.

Nevada maintained an unemployment rate of 14.4 percent in September, the highest unemployment rate of any state and the highest unemployment rate in the history of Nevada, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Nevada’s unemployment rate first hit 14.4 percent in August and stayed there for the month of September, according to data released by the Labor Department on Friday.

Since Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) became Senate Majority Leader in January 2007, the unemployment rate in Nevada has not declined in any single month. Sometimes in the period since January 2007 it has remained at the same level from one month to the next--such as from this August to September, when it maintained its record level of 14.4 percent--but it has never declined.

Help Sharron Angle put this arrogant economic wrecking ball out of commission on November 2.

Via CNS News. Cross-posted here.

First There was Funemployment; Now It's a 'Recession With Benefits'

Last summer we were treated to the media spin of spiraling job losses as funemployment. Now the left is pulling out all the stops to try to convince you that the dreadful economy is somehow a good thing. Here is the New York Times actually saying that the high unemployment rate is a positive because those who still have jobs are seeing a real wage increase.

Get a load of this pile of horsecrap:For Those With Jobs, a Recession With Benefits

But since this recent recession began in December 2007, real average hourly pay has risen nearly 5 percent. Some employers, especially state and local governments, have cut wages. But many more employers have continued to increase pay.

Something similar happened during the Great Depression, notes Bruce Judson of the Yale School of Management. Falling prices meant that workers who held their jobs received a surprisingly strong effective pay raise.

This time around, nominal wages — the numbers people see in their paychecks — have risen throughout the slump, as companies have passed along some of the impressive productivity to their (remaining) workers. Meanwhile, inflation has been almost non-existent, except for parts of last year, when real wages did briefly fall.

Obviously, real wages could begin falling again if inflation picks up or more employers cut pay. And many workers are already struggling with big debts and diminished 401(k) accounts. Still, the contrast is pretty stark. The typical jobless person has been out of work six months. The typical worker has received a raise.

Overall real income has dropped significantly during this deep recession, families have gone bankrupt, lost their homes, lost their retirement savings in many cases, and yet the New York Times is cheering since some folks who still have their jobs have gotten raises. And that the falling prices gives them an
effective pay raise.

What's next, the New York Times saying that all the empty houses are a good thing because it cuts down on traffic for everyone else in the neighborhood? Or how about an article saying that folks being broke and unable buy food is a good thing because then the grocery store lines are shorter for the rest?

These people have no shame, they will tout anything in the effort to shill for their political agenda.

I know people who have lost jobs two or three times in the past several years. I know others who have been out of work for 99 months straight or more. Go tell them that the high unemployment is a good thing.

And notice, nowhere in the article does the New York Times mention Obama's failed economic policies. Nowhere.

Despicable.

80 People In Your State Found Work Last Week

New claims for unemployment dropped for the fourth straight week. That is the cheery spin being put on the unemployment numbers being released today.

Just how 'good' is it? Well according to the figures 80 people in your state dropped from the unemployment roles. Yup, that's it. The claims for unemployment went down 4,000 from the previous week which works out to 80 people per state.

New claims for unemployment benefits dipped for the fourth straight week, a sign the job market is improving at a glacial pace.

The Labor Department says first-time claims dropped last week by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 444,000. That's just above analysts' estimates, according to Thomson Reuters. The previous week's total was revised up to 448,000.

Of course this was accompanied with the news that the previous week's number had to revised upward. When hasn't it been revised upward?

Of course this doesn't mean they found work, it is just they quit filing for unemployment benefits.
I feel so much better now.

How Do You Add Jobs and Have Unemployment Rise?

The unemployment rate in this country rose from 9.7% to 9.9% last month in spite of a rise in hiring. Now I ain't the sharpest pencil in the box but just how in the hell do you manage that feat of magic? Almost a quarter of the number of the jobs reported in the hiring numbers are directly attributable to the hiring of census workers, 66,000 of the 290,000 new job hires.

Analysts are citing all kinds of twisted logic for how this apparent disparity can exist, but the predominant theory is that more people began looking for work again which accounted for the increase in the unemployment rate. Why haven't these people been counted all along in the unemployment figures? Just how is it that this so called underemployment figure is arrived at anyway?

In a sign the labor market remains weak, a broader measure of unemployment continued to edge up. The so-called underemployment rate, which includes those who have quit job hunting as well as those working part time because they can't find full-time work, rose to 17.1% in April from 16.9% the previous month. In January, the underemployment rate stood at 16.5%.

What I do know is what is happening in my little corner of the world, and that is simply that after a year of layoffs, businesses have adapted to and learned to work with their current levels of staffing. There is also widespread fear in the private sector of daring to achieve too much, lest they become the next target of the anti-capitalist crowd or Congress critters. The economy is simply stagnant. Incentives have been removed, and in fact, punishment is the norm now. Businesses don't know what the next round of legislation is going to portend for them and which new mandates they are going to be forced to comply with.

The work force is being stretched to the breaking point. Longer hours and increased levels of productivity, while good for businesses in their attempts to remain solvent, is leaving a trail of broken people in their wake. I don't blame the heads of businesses for doing what they do to remain in business, waiting for the day when the economy truly does turn around and they can do some real hiring, and I don't blame those who have managed to hold onto a job for working themselves to the breaking point. They do have families and responsibilities that they must meet also.

What I do blame is a government, who while criticizing the private sector for building institutions that they label as being "too big to fail", have created their own little fiefdom that they view as too big to fail. Hopefully in November the American people will show those in Washington that they aren't too big to fail after all and hand out our own pink slips.

More Good News: California Funemployment Rate Hits 12.5%

Since Dingy Harry and the Democrats are today celebrating the loss of 36,000 jobs, they'll be so ecstatic at this news they may need plastic surgery to wipe the smiles off their faces.

California employers added 32,500 to their payrolls in January, a sign that the state's moribund labor market might finally be stirring to life.

The gains came as sectors throughout the economy, including construction and manufacturing, started to hire workers, according to numbers released Friday by the Employment Development Department.

The state's unemployment rate increased slight to 12.5% in January, up from a revised 12.3% the previous month, as formerly discouraged workers who had dropped out of the labor force began job-hunting again.

California's unemployment rate remains well above the national rate of 9.7%. But it's not likely to climb much higher, said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at Cal State Channel Islands.

"In California, I think we are probably nearing the peak in the unemployment rate," he said. "It's very easy to be gloomy about overall picture, but I see some strengths."

Yes, it's easy to be gloomy, especially when you live in the real world, where funemployment isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Latest Excuse For Job Loss Numbers? Snow

Are you frikkin kidding me? The latest excuse, put forth by the state media for the of course unexpected decline in job numbers is snow.

The number of new claims for unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week as heavy snows caused layoffs to rise.

Now who could have predicted that the northeast would have snow in the winter? Certainly not the climate change advocates who for a long time have given dire predictions of snowless winters. So I guess that leads to the obvious question: could our current employment situation actually be helped if there was actual global warming?

Folks, I warned of continued layoffs in the first quarter of 2010 last year, when some economists looking through their rose colored glasses were talking of an economy that was turning around. In fact as this article points out, economists say the economy has been improving for six months.

The economy has grown for six months but is not yet spurring new hiring. Many economists point out that the current recovery is weak compared to the aftermath of previous deep recessions.

I am not quite sure what they are using to say the economy is improving, but I can tell you that the general atmosphere in the business world is that there is just too much uncertainty, mostly linked to wondering which portion of private sector business is going to be targeted next by the political class to be public enemy number one. There is a ton of uneasiness related to all of the legislation pending or being bandied about in DC, whether it is the health care takeover, punishing companies with profits that some liberal considers to be extreme, or any of the various environmental measures being contemplated.

There is just too much fear in the private sector and a still tight credit market to promote any sort of expansion or risk taking by private business. Amazing, ain't it, that nobody seems offended by obscene profits being posted by Google or Microsoft?

So let's blame the snow instead of the real reasons. I can't wait until Congress subpoenas Frosty the Snowman to come testify in defense of the obscene levels of snowfall while he was taking exotic vacations to the North Pole. Sounds about as reasonable as their pursuit of a playoff in college football and steroids in baseball.

Stunner: Unemployment Claims Jump 'Unexpectedly'

It's comical how every story about job losses always calls it unexpected, with pointy-headed experts baffled by the news. Maybe someone can ask Professor Obama about this grim news today during his six-hour lecture to Republicans.

The number of new claims for unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week as heavy snows caused layoffs to rise.

In addition, many state agencies in the mid-Atlantic and New England regions that process the claims were closed due to the storms and are now clearing out backlogs, a Labor Department analyst said.

The department said Thursday that first-time claims for unemployment insurance rose by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 496,000. Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a drop to 455,000.

Bad weather can cause job losses in construction and other industries sensitive to weather.

Economists closely watch initial claims, which are considered a gauge of the pace of layoffs and an indication of companies' willingness to hire new workers.

The four-week average, which smooths volatility, rose by 6,000 to 473,750.

The four-week average has risen by about 30,000 in the past month, raising concerns that job cuts are continuing. Initial claims had fallen sharply over the summer and fall but the improvement has stalled since the year began.

The economy has grown for six months but is not yet spurring new hiring. Many economists point out that the current recovery is weak compared to the aftermath of previous deep recessions.

Obama practically tripped over himself rushing to his TelePrompter to announce the unemployment reduction to 9.7%. Let's see how fast he or his spokesthing Robert Gibbs trumpets this news.

Good News: Unemployment Drops To 5.7%

Click Chart To Enlarge

The bad news for Americans, this is in Australia.

THE jobless rate has fallen to 5.7 per cent with the number of employed people increasing by an unexpected 31,200 in November, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

What is it the Aussies know that we don't, or what are they doing that we aren't?

The unemployment rate is expected to peak at 6.2 per cent in 2010, according to the Australian Business Economists' annual forecasting survey.

In looking at the chart you can see how America stacks up against other countries and you will also notice that we are higher then the average of the other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

Just in Time for the Jobs Summit: Another 170K Now on Funemployment

Naturally, it was more than the "experts" predicted. Question: When have the "experts" ever been right?

The private sector sliced nearly 170,000 jobs last month, according to a survey by ADP Macroeconomic Advisers Wednesday, showing yet again that the labor market remains under considerable pressure despite other indicators showing the economy is making modest improvement.

The ADP survey, which gauges only private-sector job activity versus the much larger Labor Department report that will be out Friday, showed that private-sector employers shed 169,000 between October and November on a seasonally adjusted basis. The figure was slightly worse than the 150,000 loss that economists had forecasted, according to data by Thomson Reuters.

Come Friday we'll get the Labor Department numbers. Going out on a limb I'll predict it'll be more than the "experts" expect.

The ADP report is considered an estimate of Friday’s more important government jobs report, which has the potential to move markets and set the conversation tone by politicians and the media. Economists expect that the nation lost 120,000 jobs in November, while the nation’s unemployment rate remained at 10.2%.

Meanwhile, at this "jobs summit" that won't produce a single job anyone who dares criticize Obama is not welcome, especially those who know how to actually create jobs.

Facing rising unemployment rates and having seen uncertain results from the stimulus bill, President Obama is hosting a "jobs summit" at the White House Thursday that will be packed with business leaders and economists supportive of White House policies but lacks a diversity of opinion, several analysts say.

Missing from a partial list of attendees released by the White House are the self-proclaimed voices of business - the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business - both of which have been critical of Mr. Obama's proposed health care overhaul.

Confirmed attendees include liberal economists credited with shaping the $787 billion stimulus package, union leaders, environmental advocates and executives from Google and other blue-chip firms.

"He's going to get lots of recommendations to spend more money," said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. "These are the very same people who gave us the stimulus package. My feeling is we're not going to get what we need, and that's a complete change in direction on economic policy."

Just what we need: Discredited environnmental wackos who've likely been responsible for far more job losses than we'll ever see them create.

Unemployment Rate Surges to 9.8%, Economists Again Proven Wrong

Good thing Barack Obama is focused on the important issues, like attacking Fox News and trying to get the O-lympics to Chicago.

Maybe he can eventually do something about the unemployment rate, somethign he can't blame on Bush any longer and will surely cost the Democrats dearly at the polls next November. Naturally this story says the losses were worse than expected. Isn't that always the case when they're making excuses for a Democrat?

The American economy lost 263,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, the government reported on Friday, dimming the prospect of any meaningful job growth by the end of the year.

The Labor Department’s monthly snapshot of unemployment dashed hopes that the pace of job losses would continue to slow as the economy clawed its way back from a deep recession. Economists had been hoping for 175,000 monthly job losses.

In one bright spot, fewer jobs were lost in August than originally reported — with 201,000 positions gone instead of earlier figures of 216,000.

But overall, the report offered little good news for the 15.1 million unemployed people in the United States. The number of hours worked stagnated. Overtime hours slipped in many industries. And temporary help companies — typically, among the first to rebound after a recession — shed 1,700 jobs.

Indeed, while many businesses are making money again and seeing new orders trickle in, most are not ready to hire back the workers they laid off, even part-time.

To economists, that suggests that unemployment could remain at historically high levels through next year, if not longer.

“It’s a little bleak,” said Marissa Di Natale, senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “We’re not going to see job growth until the second half of next year. And even when it does start to grow, it’s going to be slow.”

What happened to all those "shovel-ready" projects we heard about last winter?

For Democrats, a slow recovery — and an unemployment rate at a 26-year high — could quickly become a liability,if businesses are not hiring by next year’s mid-term elections.

The Obama administration has said job losses would be even worse without the tax credits and spending projects from the $787 billion stimulus, but Republicans have pilloried the programs as ineffective.

WH: One Million Jobs Saved or Created

This is just more of the theater of the absurd that is passing for an executive branch of government. You can not continue to piss on my shoes and tell me it is raining. This is the type of stories we heard propagated by the old Politiburo through their media arm known as Pravda, the Russian word for "The Truth".

White House economists said Thursday that the Obama administration's recovery efforts have saved or created more than one million jobs so far, an optimistic report that economists cautioned was preliminary and uncertain.

It must be nice to pull numbers out of your butt which are hard to rebut since there is no way of knowing how many jobs would have been lost without the stimulus package, which is what the administration says saved all of the jobs.

Just speaking for my little corner of the world, I ain't seen no jobs being saved. Our unemployment continues to rise. In fact by now most folks are pretty aware that the only sector that is hiring is the federal government. It takes a lot of people to man the offices of the czars.

The report is certain to draw criticism because the U.S. economy has actually lost about 2.5 million jobs since the stimulus was signed in February. Because the White House number is based on economic models, it's impossible to say for certain what that number would have been without the stimulus.

Stolen from Big Hollywood.

More Great Economic News: Unemployment Actually Near 17%

Despite the recent claims of Barack Obama and Joe Biden that the stimulus is working, total unemployment, including those so discouraged that they have stopped looking for work, is in the 17% range.

According to the study, nearly 17 percent of Americans are unemployed, discouraged from seeking work or underemployed. That's up from 10% last year.

"The bad news on unemployment is well-known. The risk of job loss has been quite stunning," said Rutgers professor Douglas Kruse, a labor economist who created the scorecard.

Kruse said some workers are adjusting by taking part-time jobs. According to the study, nearly 20 percent of workers have part-time jobs.

The bad news just keeps on coming:

The Rutgers labor scorecard offered a mix of good and bad news:

From January to June, there were 16.1 million new unemployment claims, a 72 percent increase from 2008.

More than 1.2 million workers were in extended mass layoffs, more than double the 2008 figure.

Minorities and people with disabilities were harder hit by job market stresses. The unemployment rate is 8.6 percent for whites; 14.5 percent for blacks; 12.3 percent for Hispanics and 15.1 percent for people with disabilities.

More than 6 percent of the work force wants to work full time, but is working part time because they can't find full-time work.

Average inflation-adjusted earnings rose 5 percent from 2008 for non-supervisory workers, and median earnings for all wage and salary workers increased 3 percent.

The federal minimum wage is now $7.25 an hour, or 9 percent higher than in 1999 after adjusting for inflation.

In 1999, women who worked full-time made 24 percent less than men on average. That gap has closed to 20 percent.

Black and Hispanic full-time workers earned 24 percent and 34 percent less than white workers a decade ago, respectively. Those figures have closed to 22 percent and 28 percent respectively.

This is very interesting to hear given that Obama had said that if Congress passed the stimulus bill in a hurry that unemployment would not go above 8%. Also, Biden has recently stated that the stimulus bill is working as planned.

My gosh, if this qualifies as "working," I would hate to see what they consider a train wreck.

Do not be surprised to see a significant pull back by the market to reflect the continued dismal employment picture.

How's That Change Working Out? Blacks Hardest Hit By Obama Economy

There's no point in Obama being concerned about this. He's got their votes locked up, after all.

Unemployment among blacks in New York City has increased much faster than for whites, and the gap appears to be widening at an accelerating pace, new studies of jobless data have found.

While unemployment rose steadily for white New Yorkers from the first quarter of 2008 through the first three months of this year, the number of unemployed blacks in the city rose four times as fast, according to a report to be released on Monday by the city comptroller’s office. By the end of March, there were about 80,000 more unemployed blacks than whites, according to the report, even though there are roughly 1.5 million more whites than blacks here.

Across the nation, the surge in unemployment has cut across all demographic lines, and the gap between blacks and whites has risen, but at a much slower rate than in New York.

Economists said they were not certain why so many more blacks were losing their jobs in New York, especially when a large share of the layoffs in the city have been in fields where they are not well represented, like finance and professional services. But in those sectors, the economists suggested that blacks may have had less seniority when layoffs occurred. And black workers hold an outsize share of the jobs in retailing and other service industries that have been shrinking as consumers curtail their spending.

“African-Americans have been hit disproportionately hard,” said Frank Braconi, the chief economist in the comptroller’s office. “The usual pattern is that the unemployment rate among African-Americans tends to be about twice as high as for non-Hispanic whites, but the gap has widened substantially in the city during the past year.”

Historically, the unemployment rate for blacks has always been higher than for whites. But since the start of the recession, in December 2007, the overall rate has risen by 4.6 percentage points — driving the black unemployment rate as high as 15 percent in April. The jobless figures among blacks became enough of a national issue that at a White House news conference last month, President Obama was asked what he could do to “stop the bloodletting in the black unemployment rate.”

The president said that to help any community, whether it be blacks, Latinos or Asians, he needed to “get the economy as a whole moving.”

“If I don’t do that, then I’m not going to be able to help anybody,” the president added.

Just imagine the scrutiny if the black unemployment rate skyrocketed during John McCain's first six months as president.

In the first quarter of 2008, the rate of joblessness among blacks nationwide was 8.9 percent, compared with 4.8 percent for whites; in the first quarter of 2009, the rate for blacks had risen to 13.6 percent, while the rate for whites had gone to 8.2 percent.

But policy experts and public officials expressed concern over the much sharper trend in New York, where the city’s overall unemployment rate hit a 12-year high of 9percent in May. The jobless rate for all blacks in the city rose to 14.7 percent in the first quarter, up from 5.7 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

Apparently New York's African-American governor was unavailable for comment on these dreadful numbers.

Meanwhile, Dear Leader Obama's approval index continues to crater.