Monday, June 15, 2009

Unemployment Figures: Up Up and Away

In this chart, number cruncher geoff at Innocent Bystanders compares actual unemployment data (maroon dots) with unemployment predictions made by Obama's economic team (everything in blue).

Oops.

That maroon actual unemployment trajectory shooting practically straight up is frightening, much more severe than Obama's own worst-case scenario "Without Recovery Plan" (light blue line), which he used to scare the living $787 billion of "stimulus" bucks out of taxpayers in just a few days.

No surprise to real-life unemployed workers, the maroon dots plotting real unemployment figures are headed in a completely different direction than the "With Recovery Plan" prediction (dark blue line). Commenting on the direction of actual unemployment, geoff said:
This trend is terrible – the [April to May] unemployment rate change was 60% higher than what was predicted, and is a larger increase than from March to April.
Obama keeps telling us that the stimulus package has been "saving jobs." Here, geoff answers the question, “How do you know that it wouldn’t have been worse without the stimulus?”

The answer is very simple: because the stimulus hasn’t happened yet. And everybody knows that. But I don’t think people understand how true it is. It is this true:

Stimulus-Spending-May-09

Reader, please note that the stimulus money spent as of mid-May is indicated by the maroon boxes at the bottom left of the graph. That relatively tiny amount is it and all of it! And that money has been spent mainly on Medicare (the purple area in the inset), with substantially less on Unemployment (the green blue area), and with a smattering thrown in for Food Aid (pink area) and even less for Education (lavender area). As geoff explains it:
We’ve barely spent anything so far, and everything we have spent (inset graph) has been devoted to minimizing suffering via social services, not stimulating the economy.
I keep running into people who "want to give Obama a little more time." Maybe their patience will run out when their jobs or businesses get flushed.

Hat tip: A Goy and his Blog
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