The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Obama Lies About Unemployment

Posted on | May 13, 2011 | 8 Comments

Just flat-out makes up “facts” during a town-hall meeting on the economy in D.C. hosted by CBS News:

“The reason the unemployment rate is still as high as it is, in part, is because there have been huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level . . . Teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers– they have really taken it in the chin over the last several months. And so, what we’re trying to do is to see if we can stabilize the budget.”

Jim Geragthy fisks this absurd claim:

All figures come from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Recent peak of private-sector employment, June 2007: 116,603,000.
Total private-sector employment in the month Obama became president, January 2009: 109,084,000.
Recent low of private-sector employment, January 2010: 104,933,000.
Total private-sector employment, April 2011: 108,494,000

Private-sector employment is 8.1 million jobs below its 2007 peak, and 590,000 below where it was when Obama took office. Meanwhile, Geraghty provides BLS numbers on government employment:

June 2007: 22,176,000.
January 2009: 22,471,000.
January 2010: 22,376,000.
April 2011: 22,594,000

No “huge layoffs.” Obama just made that up. And it’s a lie.

Via Memeorandum, with further commentary by The Lonely Conservative, Sister Toldjah, Gateway Pundit and Bryan Preston at PJ Tatler.

Category: Barack Obama, CBS, Economics

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