Even the cheeriest White House hand found it difficult to put a positive spin on the unemployment numbers released Friday morning.
The bulletin from CNN stated with appropriate starkness: "U.S. unemployment rate hits 10.2 percent in October, the highest rate since April, 1983. Job losses total 190,000."
The administration had no doubt been hoping the forecasts of a 9.9-percent jobless rate would prove correct. But now that rate is in double digits just as retailers begin to anticipate the holiday shopping season. Numbers like these aren't exactly conducive to consumer confidence.
The White House spin doctors can claim that this recession and job spiral had its origins in the last years of the Bush administration. But Obama was elected to turn things around.
And what have we gotten so far? Well, there was this story from The Associated Press last week: "The government's latest count of stimulus jobs significantly overstates the effects of the $787 billion program ... raising fresh questions about the process the Obama administration is using to tout the success of its economic recovery plan."
It's sounding more and more like more of the same.
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