The Obama Economy's Bleak Employment Numbers

Mort Zuckerman paints a rather bleak picture of the US economy as does this cartoon from the article.

From Zuckerman's piece in US News:

"How do you recover from a recovery? Just how bust the nation's 'recovery' has been is painfully documented in the latest news, just two months before the election. The Census Bureau validated what middle-class Americans know all too well from their week to week, month to month struggle to make ends meet. The typical family is back to where it was in 1995. The analysis of annual data collected by the bureau indicates that median income in 2011 had fallen to $50,054, the fourth straight year of decline in well-being, and that's adjusted for inflation.

[...]

"Nobody is entitled to blow a trumpet because the unemployment rate for August can be headlined at 8.1 percent, down two digits from July's 8.3 percent. That's a drop brought about not by more jobs but because 360,000 people left the workforce. It muffles the fact that 5 million people have now been out of work for 27 weeks or more. That's roughly 40 percent of the unemployed. Another 2.6 million people were marginally attached to the labor force, and over eight million people have given up looking for a job, so they are not counted because they had not searched for work in the prior month.

[...]

"Fewer Americans are at work today than in April 2000, even though the population has grown by 30 million people since then. Think about that.

"A reality check is offered by the unemployment numbers the government calls U-6. It measures people who have applied for a job in the last six months and also includes people who are involuntary part-time workers—government-speak for people whose jobs have been cut back to two or three days a week or who are working part-time because they have been unable to find a full-time job. That number is almost 15 percent. Include the eight million people who have simply given up looking for a job and the real unemployment rate is closer to 18 or 19 percent. [emphasis mine]."

Not a rosy picture. Democrat Zuckerman sums it up with this:

"The economy is slowing to a growth rate that will be close to zero in the second half of this year, according to a recent AEI report, which also notes that 2012 is the third year of stalled recoveries. No incumbent president has ever won re-election with unemployment rates as high as they are likely to be in November. A job is the most important family program, the most important social program, and the most important economic program in America. The unemployment and income statistics are intolerable for a compassionate and wealthy nation."

But mostly these statistics are intolerable to the voters of this nation. Obama's policies have been complete failures. Real unemployment at 19%?! Gasoline above $4 a gallon? But Obama's biggest failure (which was the GOP's fault anyway) was not being able to pass comprehensive immigration reform? Really?

Can the US actually take four more years of this?