Obamanomics: Unemployment Claims Up, GDP Down

Ruh-roh, Barack Obama — even the Los Angeles Times can’t spin your fail:

New unemployment claims unexpectedly jumped last week, indicating a pickup in layoffs, a worrisome sign ahead of Friday’s important jobs report for May.

Adding to the dreary economic news, the government said in a separate report Thursday that U.S. gross domestic product grew at a slower pace in the first quarter than previously thought. Growth in GDP, the total value of goods and services produced in the nation, was revised down to an annualized rate of 1.9% from 2.2% initially estimated a month ago.

The revision by the Commerce Department reflected a smaller increase in consumer spending and inventory building, and a bigger drag on growth from government cuts and the trade deficit. On the positive side, business investments were revised slightly higher.

GDP expanded at an annual rate of 3% in the fourth quarter of last year. Many analysts are expecting GDP growth to remain mediocre this year at about 2.5%, which doesn’t bode well for the job market.

The Labor Department’s report Thursday on weekly unemployment claims showed first-time filings rose to 383,000 for the week ending Saturday. That was an increase of 10,000 from the previous week’s revised figure, a sizable jump after smaller increases in the previous two weeks.

Compare Reagan’s recovery after inheriting an economic crisis to Obama’s.

Both Presidents attempted “trickle-down economics.” Reagan gave money back to the people in the form of historic tax cuts and blew the doors off the economy.

Obama took our money (and China’s), decided the government would dictate how it would be spent in the hopes it would “trickle down” to the rest of us, and the failure of this policy is now undeniable.

James Pethokoukis looks even deeper at today’s troubling numbers:

– 1Q GDP was revised down to 1.9% from 2.2%. The previous four GDP quarters of Obama recovery: 0.4%, 1.3%, 1.8%, 3.0%. Keep in mind research from the Federal Reserve finds that that since 1947, when two-quarter annualized real GDP growth falls below 2 percent, recession follows within a year 48 percent of the time. (And when year-over-year real GDP growth falls below 2 percent, recession follows within a year 70 percent of the time. …

– Job cuts jumped by 53% in May from April. in the United States,according to a report by consultancy firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. CNBC also notes “that employers announced plans to cut 61,887 staff from their payrolls in May, 67 percent more than in the same month of last year. The figure represents the most job cuts since last September.”

You’ll want to read all of it.

The media can coordinate with the White House and attack Ann Romney and Mormonism all it wants. In the end, though, all that will matter is the report card on Obama’s handling of the economy. And not even Obama’s MSM Palace Guards can create jobs or jump-start a slowing economy.

After all, the media is going bankrupt — which is the only service its done for this country in thirty years.   

By the time November rolls around, the media will probably be accusing statistics of racism.