Declaring “Recovery Summer” victory tour at the start of June, must have looked like a pretty safe wager for the Obama Administration. The economy seemed to have shifted firmly into gear during the Spring.
Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council told the “Financial Times” om early April that the economy was “moving towards escape velocity. You hear a lot less talk of W shaped recoveries and double dips than you did six months ago.”
Recovery Summer looks more like a bad bet, private sector job growth has fallen by two-thirds and the U.S. unemployment rate is still sky high—9.5% and if the size of the U.S. workforce as measured by the Dept of Labor had stayed consistent since April instead of shrinking by a million the unemployment rate would be 10.4 %
Jobless claims are at the highest level since February, worse yet, the expansion is decelerating after growing by 5.7% in the 4th quarter 2009 and 3.7% in the first quarter 2010
Gross Domestic Product advanced by just 2.4% from April through June, according to the Commerce Dept and new data shows the final second quarter number may actually be closer to flat with growth for the rest of the year just 1 to 2 percent at best.
Full article here “Obama’s Bad Bets—Recovery Summer Goes Bust” The Weekly Standard