The Hollywood Liberal

U.S. Unemployment Hits 7.6 Percent

With little surprise but incredible effect, the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent in January, hitting its highest level since 1992. President Obama used the report to prod Congress to pass his economic stimulus package.

The BBC:

The US unemployment rate rose to 7.6% in January, up from 7.2% in December, according to official figures.

The rise puts the unemployment rate at the highest level since 1992.

According to the US Labor Department, the economy lost 598,000 non-farm jobs for the month, and it also revised upwards the job losses for December.

Commenting on the figures, President Obama said the “the situation could not be more serious” and added that “these numbers demand action”.

He urged the Congress to pass his economic stimulus package without delay and “not to get bogged down in distraction and delay while millions of Americans are being put out of work”.

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Today on MSNBC, the Morning Joe team — many of whom have been having a tough time with the facts of the economic recovery plan — hosted Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman to discuss the bill. Krugman began by emphasizing the severity of the current economic crisis. “This is not your father’s recession,” Krugman said. “This is your grandfather’s recession. This is something that is closer to what we went through in the 30s.”

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Yesterday, the Senate defeated (but most Republicans voted in favor of) an alternative plan offered by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that centered mainly on massive tax cuts. Krugman called the plan “completely crazy” and an indication of a failure of bipartisanship:

KRUGMAN: Look at what just happened, we had a proposal I think it was McCain’s proposal for an economic recovery package, his version of it which was all tax cuts, a complete, let’s do exactly what Bush did, have another round of Bush-style policies. After eight years which that didn’t work and we got 36 out of 41 Republican senators voting for that which is completely crazy. So how much bipartisan outreach can you have when 36 out of 41 republican senators take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh?

Watch it:

Later in the interview, Krugman advised President Obama to “disregard” the GOP’s knee-jerk reaction to cut taxes. “At this point we have a Republican Party that, except for a few members, is committed to just doing more what we did during the last eight years. Obama has to disregard that.”

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