Americans should not expect the economy to get better if the government’s present policies proceed. The release of new monthly unemployment numbers today again demonstrated that American families are suffering and much-needed relief for American business is still out of reach. Nearly one in ten (9.6%) Americans is still unemployed, yet the President and Congress poured billions of dollars into economic stimulus. See a graph from IWF’s friend Dan Mitchell below for a visual of just how badly the stimulus bill has missed the mark. (Warning! What you will see is not a pretty picture.) The blue line represents the White House’s December 2009 projections for the impact of the stimulus bill on unemployment. The red dots represent the actual quarterly unemployment results.
It’s been said that hindsight is 20/20. We should make sure not to re-enact such harmful, job-killing policies again.