White House predicts slow employment growth
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/11/art.romer.file-gi.jpg caption="Christina Romer said Wednesday she expects an average of 95,000 jobs a month to be created this year, and that the nation's GDP will expand at a 2.5% rate."]New York (CNNMoney.com) - Companies will begin slowly adding to their payrolls in 2010, according to an annual White House review of the economy.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers, which on Thursday released a 462-page analysis of the president's economic initiatives, said that the unemployment rate will be at 10% during 2010. It is now at 9.7%.
"With millions of Americans still unemployed, much work remains to restore the American economy to health," the report said. "It will take a prolonged and robust GDP expansion to eliminate the large jobs deficit that has opened up over the course of the recession."
On a call Wednesday with reporters, Council Chairwoman Christina Romer said she expects an average of 95,000 jobs a month to be created this year, and that the nation's GDP will expand at a 2.5% rate.
The report, which is delivered to Congress, looks at the actions President Obama took to deal with the recession over the past year. It also discusses the economic challenges that lie ahead for the nation, but offers little insight that's new.
Overall, the analysis enthusiastically supports the administration's handling of the economic crisis and its proposals to strengthen the country's fiscal standing in the future.
Romer called the report "a page-turner" and noted that it's available for download to Kindle and other e-readers.
The report places blame on the Bush administration for running up debts and cutting taxes.
Romer blogged about the study on WhiteHouse.gov. "Largely because of two tax cuts, two wars, and a major new Medicare drug benefit that were not paid for, the budget surpluses of the 1990s had been replaced by substantial actual and projected future deficits long before the recession began at the end of 2007," she wrote.
She also took another whack at Obama's favorite new target: Wall Street.
"Much of the economic growth that the United States experienced in the past decade was fueled by consumers and the government running up large debts, aided by a financial system better at making short-term profits than managing long-term risks," she wrote.
Republicans were quick to react the report, calling it fluff and noting that the report says that unemployment won't fall back to its 2008 level for another seven years.
"The Obama Administration's report is full of blame for the policies of years past, praise for its own failed policies of the past year, and promises about their ideological agenda to grow government, said Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the House GOP whip. "Instead of praising themselves and blaming others, a greater focus on small businesses and smart solutions to reduce uncertainty and create jobs would be welcomed and is long overdue."
The report has kind words for the $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the centerpiece of Obama's economic policy in his first year.
Calling the program the "great unsung hero of the past year," Romer reiterated that the program has funded up to 2 million jobs and helped turn the economy around.
Going forward, the report highlights several areas of financial concerns. These include health care, the deficit, living standards, business investment and trade, climate change and financial regulation. As consumers spend less, the government must foster an atmosphere which allows companies to ramp up their investments and exports.
The report lays out the administration's proposals to address these issues.
Obama has made job creation his central focus in his second year in office. He has recently traveled the country promoting tax credits for small businesses, the source of many new hires. And on Tuesday, he brought together congressional leaders to push for a bipartisan agreement on legislation to boost hiring.
Its time to send the visa workers home and let Americans take those good paying jobs.
So, Obama's Stimulus Package was a failure!!! He should resign!!!!
Might I suggest a new title for this article???
White House policies guarantee no employment growth
If the Republicans they can move forward w/Sarah Palin at the helm they are wasting their time and money.....I tell the republicans to keep looking....
I think Romer ate too much stimulus.
The 462 page report, released Thursday, was immediately criticized by Cantor, who can read and digest 462 pages in 30 seconds.
Why can't he read the Health Care Bill?
Typical lying hypocrite repuke.
That slow growth is going to be more painful for blacks as the economy recovers. for some of them, it may come too late. here is a sample of what's happening in the black labor force.
Before the banks' final melt down, banks were already in trouble. As banks faced difficulties, African Americans were disproportionally laid off, terminated for any excuse or simply not hired. Today, those early unemployed workers do not qualify for unemployment (exhosted their contributions). With not receiving unemployment, they are not qualified for unemployment training. They are not on the list of anyone's A list for hiring since their skills are not current or their experience is not recent. This category of black unemployed are sinking more and more into despair and poverty, even when they have a college degree. What is it that the government is doing for this category of unemployed?
So, forget the green job training and all other training that the president is talking about. They would be excluded even by government own actions: The unemployment recovery acts are placing emphasis on newly unemployed, to boost their numbers.
Numerous are falling in by the way side of unemployment numbers as they become unqualified for unemployment by vertue of their non contribution.
One more time....PLEASE STEP DOWN MR OBUMMER!
What fairý tale world is that retard Obama living in.
More partisan politics from the Obama Whitehouse who says he wants to usher in a more civil bipartisan tone. So when is he going to start?
Blaming Bush and the Republicans does not solve the problems. Obama brags about who he is fixing it while at the same time the report says unempolyment really won't be fixed this year. Bizarre.
Obama is in effect saying it is Bush's fault and I don't really know how to fix it even though I say I am.
There are many reports on the new jobs bill, outside of Fox News, that says the new bill as it is currently written will create very few jobs for how much it is going to cost. Is this he best he can come up with?
He still has climate change on the list. That will go no where. How about admiting that the man made climate change was bad science and dropping it and any policy along with it that will raise the cost of carbon based energy and which would choke the economy and kill jobs. How about energy independence policy that will not tax carbon based energy, that will open up offshore drilling, increase natural gas production, promote clean coal technology and promote new green technology like wind and solar and electric autos.
Let's all pray that those needing jobs will get them, it's not in the best interest for anyone to think negative at this point. People need jobs whether they are Democrat or Republican, people need jobs.
Of course job growth will be slow – and Americans need to suck it up and be patient.
They also need to accept that, regardless of all the magic fairy dust the GOP promises to sprinkle on our problems (tried-and-failed tax cuts for the wealthy), the mess we're in is going to take time to clean up.
Obama is not only a retard,he's also an outright bald faced liar.
Anybody ever max out a credit card? Remember how fast and easy it was to do that – and how long and arduous a process is was to pay it off?
That's exactly the position our country is in. GW Bush took the Clinton surplus, passed irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy while waging two wars, and ran up the deficit.
And just like so many Americans, Bush didn't put anything aside for a rainy day (GW Bush's rain days = Katrina, two wars that didn't turn out to be cakewalks, the global financial collapse brought on by unregulated, unethical and reckless Wall Street practices, among other things).
I imagine that the GOP is already mobilizing to blame Obama for the snowstorms in D.C. In fact, Sarah Palin and Pat Robertson probably think God is punishing D.C. (justifiably) for giving marital recognition to gays.
President Obama knows that the money being spent now in the short term on job creation and infrastructure are solid investments that will get our country out of this mess.
Just like all the Americans who’ve lost their jobs and even though they have debt, are going back to school to get retrained for new careers.
I don’t mind spending money on rebuilding our country; what I’m tired of is the Republicans’ endless effort to try to convince people that tax cuts for the wealthy will solve all of our problems – EVEN THOUGH IT HAS NEVER WORKED IN THE PAST!
Wake up, folks – don’t be fooled by the GOP again. (Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!)
Obama's policies are wealth redistribution job killers. Feels good to some for the short term, but puts the country on a path to failure.
How does the number of unemployed go up but the % rate go down???
1,140,000 new jobs by the end of the year. OK we'll hold you to that.
It looks like most of new jobs will be in fast food so that Council Chairwoman Christina Romer can continue her diet. She need to join the first lady's Get moving program.
Funny but most experts also factor in the under employed in the unemployment rate. An educated engineer working as a hostess at a Logans restaurant because she can't find meaningful employment is not figured into governmant numbers. When these people are counted mthe unemployment rate is above the 20% rate.
It is time for Obama to bring our jobs back home. If Wal-Mart wants to
be responsible for the Chinese economy then let them move there.
white house prediction history:
2008: quick and sweeping job creation
2009: look at all the money I am throwing at this – it will create jobs
2009: some delay then pretty good job creations
2010: slow job creation
2011: it is OK that there are few new jobs
2011: um ah – did you remember I met with the Dali Lama?
She must mean 95,000 government jobs per month. We're still losing 400,000+ jobs every week in the private sector.
This report is total partisan propaganda.
Obama promised his stimulus if passed right away would keep unempolyment below 8%. It went up to 10% and is now 9.7%. Now his staff produces a report saying it will stay around 10% for the rest of the year. But instead of admitting his now 800 billion plus stimulus failed to do the job, he blames Bush again.
A majority of voters are sick of the blame Bush excuse and want someone who actually knows how to fix it. Obama has failed. Blaming Bush won't stop voters from holding Obama responsible when he fails to fix it as he promised he would.
Does this surprise anyone???
The majority in the country now realize that NOTHING will be resolved regarding high unemployment and the troubled economy---until Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the liberal Democrats lose power/control in the 2010 elections.
The Obama Administration is viewed as the "enemy' in regard to businesses and the economy.
Michelle Berry runs a day-care business out of her home in Flint, MI. She thought that she owned her own business, but Berry's been told she is now a government employee and union member. It's not voluntary. Suddenly, Berry and 40,000 other Michigan private day-care providers have learned that union dues are being taken out of the child-care subsidies the state sends them. The "union" is a creation of AFSCME, the government workers union, and the United Auto Workers.
This racket means big money to AFSCME, which runs the union, writes the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank.
Today the Department of Human Services siphons about $3.7 million in annual dues to the union….
The money should be going to home-based day-care providers — themselves not on the high end of the income scale. Ms. Berry now sees money once paid to her go to a union that does little for her…
BTW CNN, explaining how the policies of the past decade or more led to where we are is not "blame." If people are going to get their panties in a bunch because an expert academic discourse explains how the policies of the past led to the circumstance of the present, then we're NEVER going to progress. We'll simply keep repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again. The GOP, of course, wants this, because admitting its economic theories and ideology have been disproven by the past 30 years of complete raw-dog shafting of the middle-class while those theories were applied, well, that would lead to abandonment of what the GOP is selling...i.e., more trickle-down free-market deregulatory shenanigans that favor the already wealthy and large corporate interests. Rather than admit they were wrong, take the lessons from the past and re-invent themselves, they want us to believe they were right. Why? Because they fear the political consequences of admitting they were wrong more than they fear the practical consequences of succeeding in convincing us to believe they were right, in spite of the counterveiling evidence, such that we continue doing the same things that got us here in the first place. So they play victim, whining about being "blamed" when all anyone is really doing in that report is telling it like it is. "We did X and Y was the result." READ THE REPORT...it's far from "blaming" anyone unless you try to read something into it. You've really done everyone a disservice by selling the mischaracterization on the GOP's behalf just to make the story more controversial and easier to perepetuate.
No kidding...ya think??