More bad news on the employment front

Applications for U.S. unemployment aid fell this week to 319,000. Last week the number was 344,000. Now you might think that’s good news, but it’s not. What matters when you look at this number is the rolling four-week average, which the Labor Department says is up 4,500. That means we’re still looking at about 325,000 people a week filing for unemployment claims.

---

When you’re supposed to be in a recovery, you don’t have anywhere near that number filing for unemployment. But a real recovery doesn’t see quarters of 0.1 GDP growth like the one we just had. Now the Obama Administration is trying to blame the snow, which is a curious thing to say in the same week when they also tried to tell us global warming is lurking at our door. But it also doesn’t wash because they trend far predates the one harsh winter we just had. Since 2007, the U.S. population has added more than 8 million people to the working age population. But in that same period, the total number of people working is down by a half million. You can’t blame the snow for that. Maybe they could blame . . . George W. Bush! Or maybe they could realize that their own policies – from taxes to regulation to ObamaCare to massive deficit spending – are hindering economic growth and hampering the process of job creation. Then again, if your agenda is the expansion of government and not private sector wealth creation, why would you care?

---