Zero New Jobs in America

President Obama enters this Labor Day weekend with a serious problem on his hands. For all intents and purposes, the economy appears to be stuck in neutral, with news out today that the U.S. economy created a grand total of zero jobs in August. This followed two months of near zero growth. Not surprisingly then, the unemployment rate in August remained at 9.1 percent, virtually unchanged since April. In fact, it was completely unchanged, and for the first time since 1945, no new jobs were created—Zero.

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America now has the weakest labor market in a generation, and the American people know it. In a new CNN/ORC poll released this week, 65 percent of Americans say they disapprove of how President Obama is handling the economy. And even the White House has downgraded its expectations for the United States’ economic future, as The Hill reports:

When the ‘substantial’ economic ‘turbulence’ of the last two months are [sic] considered, the administration expects the economy to grow as little as 1.7 percent in 2011 compared to last year. That is down from a rosier projection of 2.7 percent growth, made in February.

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