According the BLS, as reported at CNS.com, subtracting out new retirees, there are more than 4.2 million additional people over the age of 16 who are unemployed today than there were on President Obama’s first inauguration day. As reported by CNS:
The increase in Americans opting out of the labor force during Obama’s first term resulted in a decrease in the labor force participation rate from 65.7 percent in January 2009, the month Obama was first inaugurated, to 63.6 percent in December 2012, the latest month reported. Before Obama took office, the labor force participation rate had not been as low as 63.6 percent since 1981, the year President Ronald Reagan took over from President Jimmy Carter. To be in the labor force a person must either have a job or actively sought one in the previous four weeks.
Statistics like these seem to have left no impression on the president. There is not a single policy that he has enacted since taking office which would do anything but exacerbate this trend. This includes his stimulus package, which by any economic logic had no chance of actually enhancing the net creation of employment opportunities. In fact the impact could only be negative. Since then he has enacted such job killing legislation and regulations a the “Obamacare,,” the EPA endangerment finding on CO2, and the recent set of “fiscal cliff” tax increases. It has become clear throughout his first term that the net creation of employment opportunities has been a low priority, ranking well below implementing his “progressivist” agenda. Indeed it is a cause that he has been willing to sacrifice on the alter of this agenda.
