Not to put too fine a point on it, but this sucks:
You wanna know what table A-1 looks like? Here you go:
Oh, sorry, that’s a graph. Anyway. U-6, the number that really tracks who’s unemployed, is still discouraging, but hasn’t changed since last month: 16.8 percent. Andrew Leonard, as always, has a better breakdown.
Wasn’t the stimulus supposed to help by now? Well, yes and no. Von at Obsidian Wings makes a long and credible argument that the stimulus as passed was too back-loaded, providing to much money for job creation next year and not enough for the current year. I can see that logic, and as someone still without a job, I, too, wish there’d been a bigger investment early on.
But to say that the stimulus isn’t working fast enough isn’t quite true. The Treasury and Energy Departments announced just this week that they’re investing about $500 million in 12 wind and solar farm projects in the U.S., an announcement that comes a month earlier than the deadline for making the awards. I’m particularly happy about this announcement, as Oregon — the state with the second-highest unemployment in the country and, yes, my home — will benefit most from the investments, with over $130,000,000 coming to three big projects. (More on that next week).
I agree that the stimulus plan, as written, has problems, but it is in large part being deployed more quickly and often more efficiently than I had expected. Which doesn’t make these numbers any easier to take, but does, at least, remind me that things are still scheduled — sigh — to get better soon.