Forget the debt: it’s jobs that will define Obama’s future
Financial Times
July 26, 2011
Op-ed by: Martin Feldstein, a member of the White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board and the Belfer Center’s board of directors
Topic: U.S. unemployment rate
“The US unemployment rate reached 9.2 per cent in June, up from 8.8 per cent in March of this year and double the 4.6 per cent rate in 2007 just before the recession began. Even if a short-term deal is done on the US debt ceiling, this high and rising unemployment hurts consumer confidence and weakens President Barack Obama’s chances for re-election. To bring the unemployment rate down to 8 per cent by the time of the November 2012 election would require employment to rise by more than 200,000 jobs a month, more than four times the rate of job growth in the most recent two months.”
