Romney's Bain Role Was Reformer & Successful Business Investor NOT Job Creator!

For the Last time...

Mitt Romney's role at Bain Capital was NOT to Create Jobs!
Romney's Role at Bain was to Reform Businesses & Make Money! That's It!
He's running as a Reformer & a Businessman NOT a Politician!

Its okay to examine Romney's Job Creation record at Bain & as Governor of Mass.
Yes Massachusetts was No.47, however it was NOT No. 47 for Three Consecutive Years in a Row!

The U.S. Economy has Experienced Long Term, High Unemployment for Three Consective Years.

And its double & triple in BLACK Communities.








Tall Tales About Private Equity

PRESIDENT OBAMA started his general election campaign by taking aim at Mitt Romney’s job creation record at Bain, setting off a lively debate over the fairness of the attacks.

I am among those who have been drawn into the argument — there was even a snippet of me defending private equity in a Romney campaign ad.

As a former Obama administration official, I was uncomfortable about being used in a Romney ad in support of his position.

However, I was also concerned that the Obama ads, while narrowly accurate, might be seen to portray Bain Capital (and implicitly, private equity) in an ugly light because a few of the companies the firm invested in went bankrupt while Bain Capital still made money

On Monday, Mr. Obama struck the right balance, emphasizing that he wasn’t attacking private equity but was questioning Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital credentials to be the job creator in chief.

That’s fair, particularly because Mr. Romney himself has been foolishly reweaving history to claim, as recently as last week, that he helped create 100,000 jobs during his time at Bain.

In fact, Bain Capital — like other private equity firms — was founded and managed for profit: ideally, huge amounts of gain earned legally and legitimately. Any job creation was a welcome but secondary byproduct.

The language in one prospectus seeking Bain Capital investors was clear: “The objective of the Fund is to achieve an annual rate of return on invested capital in excess of the returns generated” by other investments. Any job creation was accidental.

In Mr. Romney’s case, his jobs assertion rests heavily on just a few early investments.

Originally hatched to provide venture capital to young enterprises, Bain Capital notched a few such successes, notably Staples and Sports Authority. These were small stakes in companies — about $2.5 million in Staples — over which Bain had little influence.

While I defend the role financiers play in making our economy work, I also concede that Mark Zuckerberg was far more central to the success of Facebook and its 3,200 jobs than the venture capitalists who invested early.

Although Bain Capital sold off those early investments years ago, Mr. Romney takes credit for every job ever created at every company Bain Capital invested in during his tenure — while ignoring jobs eliminated after his departure.

“The steel factory closed down two years after I left Bain Capital,” he said last week about GST Steel, the Kansas City, Mo., company that went bankrupt in 2001. “I was no longer there, so that’s hardly something which is on my watch.”

Meanwhile, when Staples went public in 1989, it had 1,100 employees; at the end of 1998, right before Mr. Romney exited Bain, it had 42,000 workers. Yet Mr. Romney takes credit for the 89,000 employed at the close of 2010.

As the years clicked by, Bain Capital and Mr. Romney smelled the chance to make more money by raising larger amounts. That, in turn, led them toward classic leveraged buyouts — the purchase, often heavily financed by debt, of more established companies.

These enterprises were often what Wall Street describes as “undermanaged,” which means the Bain Capital team could take “aggressive action” that often included cutting costs — read: jobs — to increase profitability.

That’s not wrong; it’s part of capitalism. Whatever its flaws, private equity has made a material contribution to sharpening management. But don’t confuse a leveraged buyout with job creation.

Under Mr. Romney’s leadership, Bain Capital engaged in the less attractive practice of putting more debt on seemingly successful investments in order to take dividends out. In at least four instances of Bain Capital investments during Romney’s tenure, these “recapped” companies, of which two were featured in the Obama ads, subsequently went bankrupt, costing thousands their jobs.

To be sure, some of Bain’s large leveraged buyouts — notably, Domino’s Pizza — added jobs. But Mr. Romney left Bain Capital two months after the Domino’s investment (7,900 new jobs claimed) was finalized.

Aware of private equity’s reputation, Mr. Romney still trots around the country erroneously calling himself a “venture capitalist.”

And in a further effort to deflect attention from the Bain Capital debate, Mr. Romney last week argued that President Obama was responsible for the loss of 100,000 jobs in the auto industry over the past three years.

That’s both ridiculously false (auto industry and dealership jobs have increased by about 50,000 since January 2009) and a remarkable comment from a man who said that the companies should have been allowed to go bankrupt and that the industry would have been better off without President Obama’s involvement.

Adding jobs was never Mitt Romney’s private sector agenda, and it’s appropriate to question his ability to do so.


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Sources: NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama's 8.3% Unemployment Rate Good But Not Enough; Where's Congress??

The National Unemployment Rate has hovered around 8.3% for the past 4 or 5 months.

Those numbers are good but NOT good enough!

When Pres. Obama stepped into the Oval Office in 2009, due to George W. Bush’s Deregulated Wall Street Policies the United States was loosing more than 700,000 Jobs Each Month to Overseas Workers for Cheap Labor.

Especially Manufacturing Jobs!

Now let's fast forward to 2012.

Despite GOP Pundits criticizing his efforts, Pres. Obama's Economic Policies have STOPPED American Jobs from being Shipped Overseas for Cheap Labor & he has helped to steady the Unemployment Rate.

This looks pretty good for an Incumbent President seeking Re-election.

However......

Its NEVER safe to rest on One's Laurels or Accomplishments.

As Of March 2012 there are Still Millions of American Citizens who are either Unemployed or Underemployed.

Does Congress Care?

I won't say Congress does NOT care at all but I will say that Congress does NOT seem to care enough.

For 3 1/2 Years the Democrats & Republicans in Congress have done NOTHING more than Oppose Pres. Obama's Proposals, Reduce his Proposals down to NOTHING, Grand Stand on Television & Fight against one another.

While many Voters are Suffering, Congress is acting the Fool on Taxpayers’ dimes.
I Fully Support Pres. Obama's Re-election 100%.

Do I feel the same way about the re-election of most Congressional members, even BLACK members of Congress?

NO!!!

I say its time for 80% of Current Congressional Members to Resign & Make room for New, Effective, Energetic, Caring Congressional Members.

Especially many current members of the Complacent Congressional BLACK Caucus.
This is why I am a Proponent of Congressional Term Limits.





Obama's dilemma: More jobs, same unemployment rate

The economy added 227,000 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate didn't change at all.

Woe is the White House -- which would love to have the lowest rate possible heading into the general election.

But why didn't the unemployment rate change if the economy added jobs?

The unemployment rate measures the percent of the labor force that is unemployed.

The unemployed are individuals who have actively looked for work over the previous four weeks. Looking for work can mean having a job interview, sending out resumes, or even something as simple as calling friends or relatives in hopes of finding a job.

The number of unemployed is then divided by the total labor force. And in February, the size of the labor force increased -- possibly as discouraged workers started looking for work again.

As the labor force swelled, so did the number of new jobs necessary to drop the unemployment rate.

Behind the jobs recovery

Just take a look at the last two months for an example of how this works.

In February, 227,000 jobs were added and the unemployment rate didn't change. Compare that to January, when the economy added 243,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped from 8.5% to 8.3%.

The difference?

In January, the labor force participation rate decreased by 0.3%. In February, it increased by 0.2%.

And that 0.2% increase in February translated to 476,000 extra people in the labor force, preventing a decline in the unemployment rate.

So it's possible that an improving economy can actually cause the unemployment rate to remain static, or even rise, as more discouraged workers start mailing resumes.

Much has been made of how low -- or high -- the unemployment rate might be on Election Day, and whether a particular number will be enough to ensure a victory for President Obama, or sink his candidacy.

Of course, the unemployment rate is not the best measure of economic strength, but the number plays a large role in campaign trail rhetoric.

Nuclear sentinel to help keep jobs data under wraps

Assuming the labor force participation rate holds steady, and the population grows at the same rate it has over the previous year, the economy needs to add 149,288 jobs per month to get the unemployment rate to 8%.

If the economy could produce 240,247 new jobs a month, under the same assumptions, the rate would fall to 7.5%.

But this is a fragile calculation. If the labor force participation rate ticks up by only half a percent, to 64.4%, the economy would need to add 371,916 jobs per month to reduce the unemployment rate to 7.5%. That's a tall order.

Now, no data shows 8% -- or 7.5% -- is the magic rate needed to guarantee re-election.

Indeed, no president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has won re-election with an unemployment rate over 7.2%, if anecdotal evidence is to serve as a guide.

Most election forecasters and political scientists say the way people feel about the economy is far more important -- and if the economy is markedly improved each month leading up to November, that is a best-case scenario for the White House.


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Sources: ABC News, CNN, White House.gov, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina Is Bleeding Jobs! Lawmakers Cooking Numbers!

A Closer Look At N.C.'s Unemployment Rate

Can't find a job?

It's easy to blame yourself as you watch the state's unemployment rate plunge, from 11.2 in March of this year to 9.6 in September. You see state political leaders taking a victory lap on television and that makes you feel even worse. If other unemployed people seem to be getting jobs, family and friends point out, surely you can too.

You've been pounding the pavement for months though, and you keep hearing that things are getting better, but you've got this gut sense that they are actually getting worse.

You're not imagining this. The state of North Carolina is bleeding jobs. As in losing them. Gone. Buh-bye. How can that be if the unemployment rate is going down?

The unemployment rate is horribly misleading. As former business writer and MeckDeck.com blogger Jeff Taylor pointed out, since March, when the unemployment rate in North Carolina hit a high for the year of 11.2 percent, the state has actually lost 8,700 jobs.

For those who know how to read it, Friday's jobs report was a bloodbath as 6,700 jobs disappeared statewide in a single month. According to the state employment security commission's seasonally adjusted estimates, the total employed number in September was 4,048,220. That's down from 4,054,885 in August.

An eighth grader could see the arc in state employment in this simple graph on the Employment Commission website. For the first five months of the year, total employment grew steadily as the state and the nation appeared to be slowly recovering. Then it hit a wall in May with a high of 4,095,438 and began to reverse course.

Ever wonder why economists now say they don't expect things to improve until at least 2012 despite the drop in the unemployment rate? This is why.

So why is the state unemployment rate going down? Because 13,186 people dropped out of the state labor pool in September, presumably leaving the ranks of those actively hunting for a job in frustration. That's why the unemployment rate continues to go down even as thousands of jobs vanish.

Meanwhile, the political cabal running the state jumped to take credit for another decrease in unemployment rate ahead of the election. They credited their economic policies, which included, uh, hiking taxes in the middle of a recession and um, spending more than they did the year before while claiming to be broke. As you can see, that's going smashingly.

We can only hope for another tax hike and spending increase next year. Maybe we can knock the raw jobs number down to three million and so many people will give up looking for work that the unemployment rate will go down even further ... like to 8 percent. Problem solved.

As Taylor points out, there were 282,775 fewer jobs in the state in September than there were in January 2008, at the height of pre-recession employment.

The raw job numbers aren't just headed to Hades in North Carolina. The national trend is almost identical as the total employed numbers drop and the workforce shrinks because people have given up looking for a job and dropped out.

Between January and April, according to the Employment Security Commission, total seasonally adjusted employment in this country grew by 1,122,000 jobs, a good sign. Then it abruptly reversed course, declining by 64,000 by September. That means that roughly 12 percent of that decline was in North Carolina. Not good.

If you are struggling with the stigma of unemployment, which can eat at your self-image after a while, know this: It's likely not your fault. You are not alone. And you may want to consider a move to Texas. Half the net new jobs in the country were created there over the past year.

The state has no income tax, barebones regulation of business and is among the nation's 10 lowest for overall tax burden. (North Carolina regularly ranks among the top 10 to top 11 highest-taxed states.)

Perhaps this is all just a fluke. Maybe things will get better. But if I were unemployed, I'd be loading up the U-Haul and heading west.


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Sources: Creative Loafing, Meck Deck Blog, McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina's High Poverty Rates & Rising Unemployment Claims

North Carolina Employment Security Commission Backs Off On Collecting Overpayments Of Jobless Benefits


The North Carolina Employment Security Commission said Thursday that it will work with the federal government in hopes of allowing thousands of unemployed North Carolina residents keep $28 million in jobless benefits that was mistakenly paid to them earlier this year.

A computer programming error led to overpayments to about 38,000 people receiving a second year of benefits, ESC officials said. The mistakes occurred in checks issued from January through mid-May, when an internal audit caught the problem.

The agency began sending letters to people last week to inform them of the errors and to detail how much they might owe. ESC Deputy Chairman David Clegg said many of the people receiving letters would end up owing nothing, and about 15 percent were underpaid and would be eligible to receive more money.

Many unemployed residents, however, were incensed when the ESC began cutting their weekly benefit checks in half to recoup the money mistakenly paid out earlier.

Raleigh resident Tammy Lee said the ESC stopped sending her benefit checks altogether.

"I had no warning that I was getting nothing," said Lee, who was laid off from her sales job in February 2009. "I'm in a constant state of panic."

Clegg said officials had to address the issue while the people affected were still receiving benefits.

Lee said she became even more upset this week when the ESC sent her two letters: One said she was no longer eligible for benefits while the second said she remains eligible.

"When you say you have these letters, they don't even want to talk to you. They transfer you," she said.

ESC officials issued a statement late Thursday, saying they had worked out a plan with Gov. Beverly Perdue and U.S. Department of Labor Assistant Secretary Jane Oates to waive repayment of the overpayments, if possible.

ESC Chairwoman Lynn Holmes plans to issue an order waiving repayment, and she will ask Perdue to issue a similar executive order, if required by the federal government.

All claims still need to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine if they're eligible for a waiver, the statement said.

ESC officials declined to answer questions about the plan, including how the state would repay the $28 million owed to the government and whether the money already taken from people's benefits checks would be returned.

"I sincerely apologize for the confusion and inconvenience caused to our citizens over this issue,” Holmes said in the statement. “I could have done a better job communicating this error, and the resolution of the error, to our beneficiaries. I have instructed the ESC staff to work diligently to correct this problem and make sure every claim is handled fairly and accurately.”

The agency plans to keep its phone lines open late and to provide better information to people who have questions about the issue, officials said.

Officials are still investigating to determine the source of the error that led to the overpayments. The technicalities of unemployment extensions granted by Congress and the heavy volume of people in the system contributed to the problem, Clegg said.

"I'm angry. I think somebody needs to be held accountable for this," Lee said. "I kind of feel like I'm a hamster in one of those wheels that I can't get off."




North Carolina Much Poorer Since Recession


The N.C. Justice Center has dissected new census data and found poverty rose sharply in every region of North Carolina in 2009, highlighting the widespread impact of the Recession.

The information released today from the U.S. Census "offers the first glimpse of the impact of the recession on North Carolina’s families and shows even sharper increases in poverty and child poverty than anticipated," the Justice Center reported.

“North Carolina’s families are struggling to get by in this economic downturn and this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Louisa Warren, a Senior Policy Advocate at the center. “The Great Recession has pushed more than 168,000 North Carolina families into poverty just from 2008, a startling increase that will put pressure on our public systems as they work to support struggling families.”

The Census’ American Community Survey recorded a large jump in poverty in North Carolina, from 14.3 percent in 2007 to 16.3 percent in 2009. That puts nearly 1.5 million North Carolinians officially in poverty, or making at or below $22,050 annually for a family of four.

Similar to overall poverty, child poverty in North Carolina surged to 22.2 percent in 2009 from 19.2 percent in 2007. More than one in five children in North Carolina are now poor.

Further demonstrating the profound impact of the Great Recession, deep poverty—those living below half the poverty rate—has also risen considerably in North Carolina.

In 2009, 7.1 percent of North Carolinians were living in deep poverty, making at or below $11,025 annually to support a family of four, up from 6 percent in 2007. In 2009, an estimated 643,429 North Carolinians were in deep poverty, representing significant distress for North Carolina.

According to the Justice Center, even these numbers may understate the problem. the center noted that "the census data released today were collected in the 12 month period around December 2008 when Unemployment remained low relative to its levels in the latter half of 2009. Today’s data is therefore just a first look at the recession’s impact."

As a result of rising Unemployment rates, median household income in North Carolina dropped to $43,674 in 2009, down from $46,210 in 2007.

Median household income varied across the state and the country. Robeson County had the lowest (among those for which data is available) median household income at $24,788 and many of the counties with high unemployment additionally experienced low median household income: Surry County’s median household income was $33,159 while Burke County’s median household income was $35,004.

Urban counties continued to experience the highest median household income: Wake County’s median household income, the highest in the state, was at $63,609 in 2009 and Mecklenburg County’s median household income was at $52,881.

North Carolina’s median household income remained lower than some of its Southern neighbors and Virgnia, Georgia, and Florida all had higher median household incomes in 2009.
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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Google Maps

Why Jim Bunning Backed Down, Holds Dems To PayGo Law

Sources: The Daily Beast, CNN, Whitehouse.gov

Jim Bunning Ends Gridlock On Unemployment Benefits, Reaches Deal

Jim Bunning Reaches Jobless Benefits Deal


Senators have reached agreement to end Sen. Jim Bunning's filibuster of $10 billion in benefits for unemployed workers and road projects, Bunning's office and Democratic officials said.

The agreement, officials said, calls for two votes -- one on the package itself and another on a measure to pay for it, as Bunning demanded -- later Tuesday night.

Bunning and other senators have been engaged in intense back-room negotiations since the Kentucky Republican began blocking movement on the bill late last week.

The extension of unemployment benefits needed unanimous consent to pass because Democrats have labeled it an emergency spending measure. Bunning rejected a motion for unanimous consent again Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, said Bunning had put blanket holds on all nominations pending before the Senate, but a spokesman for Bunning said he was unaware of such an action.

"Right now, the senator's number one priority is trying to reach an agreement to get this bill paid for and passed," Mike Reynard said.

Last month, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, put a blanket hold on nominations in an attempt to secure lucrative deals for his state but later dropped it.

Bunning, who is retiring at the end of this year, has said he doesn't oppose extending the programs; he just doesn't want to add to the deficit. Democrats argue that, because it is an emergency measure, the bill should not be subject to new rules requiring that legislation not expand the deficit.

Bunning told CNN's Dana Bash that he wants the Senate to hold three votes on three potential ways to pay for the benefits package. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said he could agree to one vote.

As a result of the Senate's inaction, many jobless people were no longer able to apply for federal unemployment benefits or the COBRA health insurance subsidy as of Monday.

Bunning's actions have created a political firestorm. On Tuesday morning, the Kentucky Republican pushed on the Senate floor for a measure that would pay the $10 billion tab out of the Democrats' previously passed $862 billion stimulus bill. He also dared Reid to hold a vote to cut off debate on the measure.



Reid rejected Bunning's motions.

"You have made your point ... [but] the majority of the Senate disagrees with you," Reid said to Bunning. The need to extend unemployment benefits is "an emergency. ... Our economy is suffering. [There are] long lines of people out of work."

Reid called Bunning's legislative maneuvering "terribly inappropriate" and "very out of line."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs chimed in as well.

"This is an emergency situation," he said. "Hundreds of thousands have been left in the lurch. ... I don't know how you negotiate the irrational."

Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins quickly moved to separate herself from Bunning and side with the Democratic leader, noting that the issue is "so important to senators on both sides of the aisle."

She later said Bunning's views "do not represent the majority of the Republican caucus."

"Ideally, we would offset this" spending bill, she said. "But I would support it either way because the programs are emergency programs. It's a very short-term [one month] extension."

One GOP senator who declined to be identified said Republicans are "furious" with Bunning. "This plays right into the Democratic narrative that we're obstructionist," the senator said. "We look insensitive."

"To say Bunning is not beloved is an understatement," the senator added.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, however, defended Bunning.

"He's got a legitimate argument that he's making," said Boehner, an Ohio Republican. "The Democrats just passed this legislation" requiring bills not to increase the deficit, and not even "a week after the president signed [it] into law, they want to exempt the first bill that comes across the Senate floor."

Bunning in turn called Senate Democrats "hypocritical" for recently passing rules requiring that new legislation not expand the deficit, only to turn around and push both the emergency unemployment extension and a $15 billion jobs bill that, according to Bunning, is not fully paid for.

He read a letter from a constituent in Louisville, Kentucky, praising him for deciding to "stand up to those in Congress who want to do nothing more than to spend the taxpayers' money."

"This country is sooner or later going to implode because of the massive amount of debt run up over the past 40 or 50 years," the letter said, according to Bunning. It is "sheer lunacy" to be "selling our nation's soul" to creditors such as China.

"Your stance in holding [politicians] to their words ... is a refreshing concept in an otherwise corrupt" capital.

Bunning identified the constituent only by the first name of Robert, citing security concerns.

Bash noted Tuesday that Democrats could effectively work around Bunning and pass an extension of unemployment benefits. However, she said, the Democrats "know that they have a good political issue right now [and therefore] have no plans to do that in the immediate future."

Veteran political analyst Norm Ornstein called the uproar "one of the few gifts that the Democrats have received in this post-holiday season. ... It reinforces the notion -- even though it's one guy -- of Republicans as the party of no."

Bash also noted that the GOP leadership has a poor relationship with Bunning and is therefore unable to pressure him to back down.

Federal unemployment benefits kick in after the basic state-funded 26 weeks of coverage expire. During the downturn, Congress has approved up to an additional 73 weeks, which it funds.

These federal benefit weeks are divided into tiers, and the jobless must apply each time they move into a new tier.

Because the Senate has not acted, the jobless will now stop getting checks once they run out of their state benefits or current tier of federal benefits.

iReporter: Shame on you, Sen. Bunning

That could be devastating to the unemployed who were counting on that income. In total, more than a million people could stop getting checks next month, with nearly 5 million running out of benefits by June, according to the National Unemployment Law Project.

Lawmakers have repeatedly tried to approve a 30-day extension, but each time Bunning has prevented the measure from passing.

Several other programs aside from unemployment and health benefits are also affected by the legislative spat, including federal flood insurance, satellite TV licensing, and small business loans.

The stalled bill also would provide a short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund, which is a federal fund set up to pay for transportation projects nationwide.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Monday that up to 2,000 employees at the Transportation Department will be sent home without pay as a result of Bunning's decision to hold up the bill.

"As American families are struggling in tough economic times, I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country," LaHood said in a news release. "This means that construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed."

According to two Democratic aides on the Senate floor Thursday night, Bunning muttered "tough s---" as Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, criticized Bunning's stance on the package.

Sources: CNN, The Daily Beast

Dems Play Political Hardball With Bunning, Threaten All Night Session

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dems Threaten All-Nighter To End Budget Gridlock


Democrats ramped up the political pressure Tuesday on a Republican stubbornly blocking a stopgap measure to extend help for the jobless and keep federal highway dollars flowing.

Senate sources tell NBC News that Democrats are considering a plan to stay in session through Tuesday evening to try to force an end to the impasse involving Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky.

Bunning's objection to the 30-day package of benefits has caused federal furloughs and threatens the unemployment benefits of hundreds of thousands of people. The Kentucky senator has said he is concerned that the $10 billion measure's cost is not offset.

Democrats may try to end the one-man blockade by repeatedly asking for 'unanimous consent' to pass the stopgap measure. Bunning would have to present in the Senate chamber to object each time.

Meanwhile, GOP leaders have pressed for a graceful exit from the unexpected political tempest — which has subjected Republicans to withering media coverage and cost the party politically.

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — who has a strained relationship with his homestate colleague — said that he is working with Democrats to set up a vote to pass the legislation, which has been single-handedly held up by Bunning despite virtually unanimous support from the other 99 senators.

"We're going to be able to work out the short-term extension in the very near future and we're in the process of working on that now," McConnell said.

A law that provided stopgap road funding and longer and more generous unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless expired Monday. Without the extension, about 200,000 jobless people could lose federal benefits this week alone, according to the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project.

Earlier on Tuesday, Bunning objected to a request by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a fellow Republican, to pass a 30-day extension of jobless benefits and other expired measures.

When asked Tuesday if Bunning was hurting the Republican Party, Collins said, "He's hurting the American people."

Bunning has been blocking the stopgap legislation since Thursday, which is frustrating Republicans like Collins. She said some 500 people from her state alone would lose their unemployment benefits this week, while doctors will soon have to absorb a 21 percent cut in their Medicare reimbursements.

Frustrated Democrats have been lobbing criticism at Bunning and his fellow Republicans for days. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., implored Bunning to relent and allow a vote.

Reid said that Republicans are pressing him for four votes related to the measure and ways to pay for it without increasing the deficit. Bunning wants to use leftover money from last year's stimulus measure, among other options.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Reid said, however, that he's willing to grant Bunning one vote. Democrats don't want to be exposed to potentially difficult votes — even if it would lead to immediate passage of a measure that they say is so vital to the jobless.

It is probably no coincidence that the Democrats' hardball tactics are coming as they are reaping political gains by attacking Bunning and his fellow Republicans. Major cable news networks carried Tuesday morning's proceedings live and returning to the topic frequently.

Democrat after Democrat came to the floor Tuesday to attack Republicans for blocking the legislation.

"Today we have a clear cut example to show the American people just what's wrong with Washington, D.C.," Murray said. "That is because today one single Republican senator is standing in the way of the unemployment benefits of 400,000 Americans."

"They've gone too far," Reid told reporters. "They've gone too far in blocking these unemployment benefits."

The Transportation Department says that 2,000 agency workers have been furloughed with the lapse of highway funding. They're likely to be awarded back pay once the program is revived.

Democrats want to pass the measure with the unanimous permission of all senators, a common tactic to speed noncontroversial measures through the notoriously balky Senate. Otherwise it could take almost a week to slog through the procedural steps required to take up the measure and defeat Bunning's filibuster.

Meanwhile, Reid has called up a $100-billion-plus measure to provide a longer-term extension of unemployment benefits that would last through the end of the year, along with a full-year extension of higher Medicare payments to doctors, help for states with their Medicaid budgets and a continuing a variety of expired tax breaks for individuals and businesses.

Sources: MSNBC

Jim Bunning Exposes Dems' PayGo Lie, Defends Block

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Senate Plots Path Around Bunning


Maine Republican Susan Collins was on the floor this morning and asked that the Senate move to consider the short-term unemployment benefits package that Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) stopped with his objection.

Collins said she was acting on behalf of several unnamed Republicans and, in effect, goes against Bunning.

Majority Leader Harry Reid said that his "friend from Kentucky has made his point and made it well."

However, Bunning restated his objection, so the short-term benefits extention goes nowhere.

What is Bunning's position?

-- Bunning says Reid did not follow Senate rules and procedures.
-- The jobless benefits package, a 30-day extention, would add $10 billion to the federal debt, because it was "not paid for" as required with spending offsets.
-- Reid waited until the eve of the expiration of benefits to ask for "unanimous consent" to pass the measure. Bunning objected. Bunning argued that Reid should have presented it on the Senate floor earlier and thus allow for the normal process of debate and an actual vote cast by each senator. Often the chamber is nearly empty when a "unanimous consent" request is made.
-- Bunning says he will support an extention and says he offered other ways to pay for it including using TARP funds.

What is Reid's position?

-- Reid says the temporary extention of jobless benefits is an emergency that would permit a shortcut to passage.
-- Reid says Bunning "has made his point" and it's time for him to withdraw his objection.
-- Reid plans to go around Bunning by offering a separate, larger, catch-all bill that would provide an extention of benefits for all of 2010 and the other funds for highway projects, etc.
-- Reid and Democrats talk about the needs of Americans hurting in a tough economy and argue that Bunning's objection is an affront to them.
-- Reid points out that Bunning has supported past deficit spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and did not vote for the "pay go" rule.





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Sources: MSNBC, Whitehouse.gov, Google Maps

40 States Unemployment Benefit Funds Drained

States' Jobless Funds Are Being Drained In Recession


The Recession's jobless toll is draining unemployment-compensation funds so fast that according to federal projections, 40 state programs will go broke within two years and need $90 billion in loans to keep issuing the benefit checks.

The shortfalls are putting pressure on governments to either raise taxes or shrink the aid payments.

Debates over the state benefit programs have erupted in South Carolina, Nevada, Kansas, Vermont and Indiana. And the budget gaps are expected to spread and become more acute in the coming year, compelling legislators in many states to reconsider their operations.

Currently, 25 states have run out of unemployment money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government to cover the gaps. By 2011, according to Department of Labor estimates, 40 state funds will have been emptied by the jobless tsunami.

"There's immense pressure, and it's got to be faced," said Indiana state Rep. David Niezgodski (D), a sponsor of a bill that addressed the gaps in Indiana's unemployment program. "Our system was absolutely broke."

The Indiana legislation protected the aid checks, Niezgodski said, but it came after a give-and-take this spring in which Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (R) said the state had been providing "Rolls-Royce benefits" and several thousand union workers countered by protesting proposed cuts at the state capitol. In January, the legislature is slated to consider a bill to delay the proposed tax increases intended to refill the fund.

In Nevada, Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) and legislators have feuded over the unemployment program, which is $85 million in debt to the federal government, with Gibbons accusing the legislature of "callous disregard" for not setting a tax rate.

And last week, a state task force in Kentucky recommended cutting benefits about 9 percent and imposing a week's delay in their payment. The average benefit check there is about $309 a week. The task force also proposed raising taxes.

"There were some moments of high anxiety" during the negotiations between industry and labor groups, said Joseph U. Meyer, the state's acting secretary of education and workforce development. "But in the end, the realistic options became fairly apparent."

State unemployment-compensation funds are separated from general budgets, so when there is a shortfall, only two primary solutions are typically considered -- either cut the benefit or raise the payroll tax.

Industry and business groups often lobby against raising the payroll tax on employers, while unions and other worker groups protest benefit cuts.

"We want to make sure Kentucky remains competitive and also maintain an environment of fairness," Meyer said of the negotiations.

Nationally, the average tax is about 0.6 percent of payroll; the average weekly check is about $300.

The troubles the state programs face can be traced to a failure during the economic boom to properly prepare for a downturn, experts said.

Unemployment benefits are funded by the payroll tax on employers that is collected at a rate that is supposed to keep the funds solvent. Firms that fire lots of people are supposed to pay higher rates. The federal government pays for administrative costs, and in a recession, it pays for the extension of unemployment benefits beyond 26 weeks. But over the years, the drive to minimize state taxes on employers has reduced the funds to unsustainable levels.

"The benefits haven't grown -- that's not the problem," said Richard Hobbie, director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.

Even so, he said, he expects to see unemployment checks reduced.

A shortfall in a state unemployment fund, he said, "usually means cuts in eligibility or benefits."

In Virginia, the unemployment program has borrowed $89 million from the federal government, while Maryland has not borrowed, according to the federal data.

Wayne Vroman, an expert in unemployment insurance at the Urban Institute, said that entering the recession, state programs were on average funded at only one-third the level they should have been, according to generally accepted funding guidelines.

"If you fund a program adequately, you don't need to come to these kinds of difficult decisions," he said.

Before the recession, he said, the funding guidelines "were rarely honored."

While the amount of the states' loans from the federal government is expected to grow rapidly, it is not expected to add to the federal debt. "In the past, the federal government has always gotten its money back," Vroman said.

In the meantime, however, more states are struggling to fill the gap. West Virginia imposed a freeze on benefit levels this year, and legislators in South Carolina are considering one.

"We've obviously got problems with the fund," said South Carolina House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham (R), blaming the trouble in part on the state's unemployment rate of more than 12 percent.

The state owes about $654 million to the federal government for unemployment payments.

"We're not trying to cut benefits," he said. But "if you jack rates up, those business that are struggling to hang on, you make things more difficult."



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Sources: Washington Post, Google Maps

U.S. Senate Votes To Expand Housing Credit & Unemployment Benefits...What About Jobs??

Study: Half of all U.S. children will need Food Stamps. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis say nearly half of all American children and 90 percent of African-American children will be on food stamps at some point during childhood. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

U.S. Senate Acts to Expand Housing Credit

The Senate has voted to give the jobless up to 20 weeks of additional unemployment benefits and significantly expand a tax credit program aimed at getting buyers back into the dormant housing market.

The strong Senate vote for the legislation is a recognition that the government still needs to do more to keep the economic recovery from faltering. If enacted, workers in some of the harder-hit states would be eligible for nearly two years of benefits, a record.

The bill also provides tax relief for businesses that have been losing money. It now goes back to the House, which is expected to quickly approve it and send it to President Barack Obama for his signature.



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Sources: NY Times, MSNBC, Google Maps

US House To Extend Unemployment Benefits For 13 Additional Weeks...Stimulus Watch

US House Moves To Extend Unemployment Benefits


Despite predictions the Great Recession is running out of steam, the US House is taking up emergency legislation this week to help the millions of Americans who see no immediate end to their economic miseries.

A bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September.

The 13-week extension would supplement the 26 weeks of benefits most states offer and the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year and in the stimulus bill enacted last February.

People from North Carolina to California "have been calling my office to tell me they still cannot find work a year or more after becoming unemployed, and they need some additional help to keep their heads above water," McDermott said.

Critics of unemployment insurance argue that it can be a disincentive to looking for work, and that extending benefits at a time the economy is showing signs of recovery could be counterproductive.

But this recession has been particularly pernicious to the job market, others say.

Some 5 million people, about one-third of those on the unemployment list, have been without a job for six months or more, a record since data started being recorded in 1948, according to the research and advocacy group National Employment Law Project.

"It smashes any other figure we have ever seen. It is an unthinkable number," said Andrew Stettner, NELP's deputy director. He said there are currently about six jobless people for every job opening, so it's unlikely people are purposefully living off unemployment insurance while waiting for something better to come along.

The current state unemployment check is about $300 a month, supplemented by $25 included in the stimulus act.

That doesn't go very far when a loaf of bread can cost $2.79 and a gallon of milk $2.72, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said at a hearing last week on the unemployment insurance issue.

"We need to keep our unemployed neighbors from falling into poverty. We need to figure out how best to make our safety net work," Baucus said.

The jobless rate currently stands at 9.7 percent and is likely to hover above 10 percent for much of 2010. Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said at the Finance Committee hearing that, according to Labor Department figures, 51 percent of unemployment insurance claimants exhausted their regular benefits in July, the highest rate ever.

"It is likely the exhaustion rate will continue to increase in coming months" as the unemployment rate continues to rise, he said.

Stettner predicted that Congress will likely have to continue extending jobless benefits through 2011.

McDermott in July introduced a more ambitious bill that would have extended through 2010 the compensation programs included in the stimulus act. Those benefits are now scheduled to expire at the end of this year.

But with a price tag of up to $70 billion, that bill would have been far more difficult to pass. McDermott instead decided to offer the scaled-down 13-week extension to meet the urgent needs of those seeing their benefits disappear this year.

McDermott said his bill would not add to the deficit because it would extend for a year a federal unemployment tax of $14 per employee per year that employers have been paying for more than 30 years. It would also require better reporting on newly hired employees to reduce unemployment insurance overpayments.

Three-fourths of the 400,000 workers projected to exhaust their benefits this month live in high unemployment states that would qualify for the additional 13 weeks of benefits under his bill, McDermott said.

They include Alabama, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

Other states could qualify for more benefits if their unemployment rates are approaching the 8.5 percent threshold.



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Sources: Huffington Post, Recovery.gov, National Employment Law Project, Google Maps

Unemployed, Over 40 & Depressed....Age Discrimination (Stimulus Watch)

NY Times----

Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On

They were left out of the latest unemployment rate, as they are every month: millions of hidden casualties of the Great Recession who are not counted in the rate because they have stopped looking for work.

But that does not mean these discouraged Americans do not want to be employed. As interviews with several of them demonstrate, many desperately long for a job, but their inability to find one has made them perhaps the ultimate embodiment of pessimism as this recession wears on.

Some have halted their job searches out of sheer frustration. Others have decided it makes more sense to become stay-at-home fathers or mothers, or to go back to school, until the job market improves. Still others have chosen to retire for now and have begun collecting Social Security or disability benefits, for which claims have surged.

Rick Alexander, a master carpenter in Florida who has given up searching after months of effort, said the disappointment eventually became unbearable.

“When you were in high school and kept asking the head cheerleader out for a date and she kept saying no, at some point you stopped asking her,” he said. “It becomes a ‘why bother?’ scenario.”

The official jobless rate, which garners the bulk of attention from politicians and the public, was reported on Friday to have risen to 9.7 percent in August. But to be included in that measure, which is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from a monthly nationwide survey, a worker must have actively looked for a job at some point in the preceding four weeks.

For an increasing number of people in this country who would prefer to be working, that is not the case.

It is difficult to assign an exact figure, because of limitations in the data collected by the bureau, but various measures that capture discouragement have swelled in this recession.

In the most direct measure of job market hopelessness, the bureau has a narrow definition of a group it classifies as “discouraged workers.” These are people who have looked for work at some point in the past year but have not looked in the last four weeks because they believe that no jobs are available or that they would not qualify, among other reasons. In August, there were roughly 758,000 discouraged workers nationally, compared with 349,000 in November 2007, the month before the recession officially began.

The bureau also has a broader category of jobless it calls “marginally attached to the labor force,” which includes discouraged workers as well as those who have stopped looking because of other reasons, like school, family responsibilities or health issues. But economists agree that many of these workers probably would have found a way to work in a good economy.

There were roughly 2.3 million people in this group in August, up from 1.4 million in November 2007. If the unemployment rate were expanded to include all marginally attached workers, it would have been 11 percent in August.

But even this figure is probably an undercount of the extent of the jobless problem in this country. There are about 1.4 million more people who are not in the labor force than when the recession began. Some of these are retirees, stay-at-home parents, people on disability and students. But it is also rather likely that many of these people have given up looking for work at least partly because of Economic reasons as well.

Here are four people’s stories:

Rick Alexander: A Builder by Trade, With Too Much Time

In the worst case, Rick Alexander figured, he could scrounge up a job at Home Depot.

He was a master carpenter, after all. He had skills. He had run his own successful home-restoration business for 28 years.

In early 2008, however, he moved to Florida to take care of his ailing parents, leaving his business in Connecticut to his daughter.

After helping his parents into an assisted-living facility, he began applying for jobs. He devoted eight hours a day to the task, sometimes sending out three or four applications a day.

“It was a full-time job,” he said.

At first, he focused on jobs in construction, applying to be a site supervisor. He looked for anything within an hour’s commute of where he was living in Jensen Beach.

But the real estate industry had fallen off precipitously, bringing building to a near standstill. Mr. Alexander, 58, began branching out to suppliers, applying at lumberyards and other wholesalers. Eventually, he expanded his search to Home Depot, Lowe’s and mom-and-pop hardware stores. Finally, he began applying for “everything under the sun,” even the overnight shift at convenience stores.

By that summer, he had still received no callbacks for interviews. He went back to Connecticut for several weeks to do a renovation for an old client to earn some cash. When he returned to Florida in August 2008, he tried to start his own business, selling advertising on video displays mounted in coffee shops and other places.

He networked furiously with local businesses, but by then the economy had nose-dived. Mr. Alexander said he grossed a total of $150. He sank into a funk and stopped looking.

“There are thousands of people applying for every job I’m looking at, and potential employers won’t even give me the courtesy of acknowledging I applied,” he said. “The entirety of that causes me not to bother. It’s a waste of my time and theirs.”

He has applied to just two jobs this year, both several months ago. The unemployment rate in his area, Martin County, now exceeds 11 percent. After prodding from his companion, Dona Olinger, he went down to Home Depot a little over a month ago to re-activate his application there.

His savings are gone. He lives with Ms. Olinger, who makes $10 an hour as a volunteer coordinator at a food pantry, Harvest Food and Outreach Center, where they also get groceries every week. It is her salary that pays their rent.

Mr. Alexander’s parents have since moved out of the assisted-living facility and back into their home, so he tends to them most days. He reads Robert Ludlum novels. He sleeps. To fill his time, he is looking into volunteer work. The other day, he cut the grass on his small lawn using just a pair of clippers.

Ray Rucker: Feeling Counted Out With Years Still Left

Ray Rucker came home from a job interview several months ago, sat down in his living room with his suit still on and wept.

The meeting with the interviewer had lasted 10 minutes. The man did not even open a folder in front of him to study Mr. Rucker’s résumé. It was just “jibber jabber,” Mr. Rucker said later.

Mr. Rucker, who lives in Overland Park, Kan., had little doubt about what had happened. He is 62 years old and, as he puts it, “I look 62.”

He lost his job as a facilities manager for Starbucks in Kansas City and Wichita, Kan., last November, when the company closed hundreds of stores across the country. He had done similar work for years for other national restaurant chains and retail outlets.

He landed his first interview within a month, with a retail chain. He was invited back to talk to the vice president of operations and to the director of operations. He was also invited to meet with the company’s chief executive.

But as Mr. Rucker was finishing with the director of operations, she asked him straight out whether he was retiring soon. Shocked, Mr. Rucker answered, truthfully, that he planned to work at least 10 more years.

The meeting with the chief executive never came. Mr. Rucker said he thinks his interviewer simply did not believe he planned to continue working.

A month ago, he found a job posting that seemed tailored for him, a facilities manager for a national restaurant chain. He sent in his résumé and three days later got called for an interview. The company official said he was in a hurry to fill the position. But Mr. Rucker soon learned that this one, too, had slipped from his grasp.

“That’s the one when I kind of threw in the towel,” he said.

Mr. Rucker said he was done looking. His wife, who works at a small nonprofit organization, protested, saying there was more he could do to look.

“You don’t know what I’m going through,” Mr. Rucker said he told her.

“You send out so much, and you don’t get responses,” he said. “Then when you get called in, you’re treated like you’re too old. Why am I doing this?”

So he made an appointment with the local Social Security office to begin claiming benefits. He might try to get some kind of hourly job to help make ends meet. He has mapped out some home renovation projects he wants to do.

The Social Security checks will not equal even a third of what he used to make. But he is now preparing for semiretirement.

Jenny Salinas: From a Nonstop Career to a Focus on the Home

Jenny Salinas never envisioned being a stay-at-home mother, taking care of the children and keeping house. She was the one with the high-powered career, the six-figure salary, always jetting off to Russia or China.

She put her 5-year-old daughter, Mia, in day care when she was three months old. Mia got so used to her mother going away she would simply say, “Mommy’s on a trip,” and blow her kisses when she left.

But after searching unsuccessfully since January for a job, Mrs. Salinas, 37, said her priorities had shifted. She is now content to stay home and focus on her family. She and her husband are even talking about having more children.

“It’s just amazing how it changes your perspective on what’s important,” she said.

Mrs. Salinas had been a manager of corporate marketing and media relations at an oil and gas company in Houston, where she lives. She was so focused on her career, she said, that she never noticed her daughter had a lazy eye. Mrs. Salinas’s mother mentioned something to her, but only after Mrs. Salinas was laid off did she realize that her daughter needed to see an ophthalmologist.

“That’s how much I was on my BlackBerry,” Mrs. Salinas said.

Mrs. Salinas was initially confident that she would land somewhere quickly. She seemed to be doing well, too, scoring interview after interview for senior-level corporate marketing positions. But each of those prospects dried up, usually because of a hiring freeze or some other obstacle.

So, for the last two months, she has not looked at all. Partly, she has been busy, selling their old house, moving into a new one they are renting at half the monthly expense, seeing her daughter off to kindergarten.

She is helped by the fact that her husband, a vice president at an advertising agency, still has his job. After the couple realized that her job search might take time, they decided to cut back on their spending.

She has in mind a specific set of companies, but they are all still not hiring. Unwilling to settle for just any job, she said, she would rather bide her time.

But the process of searching for work and coming up empty has also left her feeling spent.

“I was just discouraged, fed up and angry, feeling like my career had betrayed me,” she said.

Her daughter used to be in day care or preschool from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., but Mrs. Salinas began dropping her off later and picking her up earlier. Some days, they skip day care completely and while away the day together.

Tatjana Jovanovic-Grove: Moving From Serbia, Scraping By Online

Tatjana Jovanovic-Grove now occupies her days with arts and crafts projects. She makes a little money selling them online — $10 here, $50 there — but mostly it beats the sense of futility that used to envelop her each day during her quest to find a job.

“I stopped looking because that feeling of being rejected again and again is hard,” she said. “It’s just like somebody punching you in the face.”

Ms. Jovanovic-Grove, 41, has struggled to find work since she immigrated in late 2005 to the United States from her native Serbia, where she was a biology researcher at a prestigious research institute in Belgrade.

She had married an American, Doug Grove, 42, a Wal-Mart mechanic she met over the Internet. The couple initially lived in Glendale, Ariz., with their three children from previous marriages, but they moved to Winston-Salem, N.C., in late 2007.

They were attracted by the weather and the low crime rate. They also thought Ms. Jovanovic-Grove, who earned a master’s degree in Serbia in environmental protection and zoology, would have an easier time finding a job in an area rich with universities.

“I was really thinking I would have no problem,” she said.

The need for her to find work became more urgent after the couple took on thousands of dollars in additional debt after they turned their Arizona home over to a bank in lieu of a foreclosure settlement. They had been unable to sell it amid the state’s collapsing real estate market.

But aside from a few temporary jobs, Ms. Jovanovic-Grove has come up empty on everything from research assistant positions to retail jobs. Meanwhile, her husband’s hours at Wal-Mart, where he is paid a little more than $14 an hour, have been cut back.

In May, she stopped looking completely, concluding that the job market was saturated. Winston-Salem’s unemployment rate exceeded 10 percent.

“You figure out it’s just like when you toss a piece of meat at a pack of hungry cats,” she said. “I just gave up because I could not compete.”

Instead, she has turned to making wood handicrafts and selling them on Etsy.com, an online marketplace. The small payments she gets often mean she earns less than fifty cents an hour for her effort. But she reasoned it is better than wasting gas driving around applying for jobs she believes she cannot get.


Huffington Post----

VP Biden: Stimulus Doing More "Than We Had Hoped"

Defending a costly plan to revitalize the economy, Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday said the government's sweeping stimulus effort "is in fact working" despite steady Republican criticism and public skepticism.

"The recovery act has played a significant role in changing the trajectory of our economy, and changing the conversation in this country," Biden said. "Instead of talking about the beginning of a depression, we are talking about the end of a recession."

Nearly 200 days into the effort, Biden delivered an upbeat report card about the $787 billion rescue effort that President Barack Obama pushed through Congress. He quoted estimates by private analysts that the plan has created or saved 500,000 to 750,000 jobs so far. But many millions remain out of work.

The effectiveness of the two-year program is a matter of sharp political debate, and Biden sought to counter critics with a listing of tangible results.

"One of the criticisms is that it is simply a grab bag of different programs," Biden said in a speech at The Brookings Institution. "But the fact that the recovery act is multifaceted doesn't reflect a lack of design, it is the design."

The stimulus package is a mix of tax cuts, increased spending on Medicaid and huge investments in infrastructure, education, energy projects and more.

The White House is eager to promote signs of progress as the economy lumbers out of recession. Many economists warn that the unemployment rate will keep rising until at least next summer, and it is that measure – the loss or creation of jobs – by which many Americans decide whether economic life is getting better.

The Republican Party criticized Biden's speech. "The Democrats' rhetoric on their economic experiment doesn't match with the reality of millions of Americans remaining unemployed," said Republican Party chief Michael Steele. "The stimulus was an economic experiment that failed Americans."

Obama's Council of Economic Advisers on Sept. 10 will report an updated projection of the number of jobs created or saved because of the stimulus plan. Biden said he expected it will back up his predictions of 150,000 jobs in the first 100 days and another 600,000 formed or saved over the second 100 days of the act.

Biden warned that the recovery will be uneven. But he said so far, the law is "doing more, faster, more efficiently, and more effectively than most expected."

The White House, though, has also admitted that its initial economic forecasts to sell the stimulus were too rosy. Many Republican leaders say the stimulus is not working nearly as well as the White House promotes, and at huge cost of debt to the nation.

With Obama on vacation at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, the White House hopes Biden's message will break through.

A Gallup poll last month found 51 percent of Americans wished the government would have spent less to stimulate the economy. The same poll found 41 percent thought the stimulus package was helping the economy in the short term; 33 percent saw no effect, and 24 said it was making the economy worse.

The vice president's appearance is part of a concerted White House push in advance of the 200th day of the stimulus act on Saturday. Five top administration officials plan to speak about the law's benefits on Thursday in appearances in Arkansas, Virginia, Illinois, California and Minnesota.

Public approval of Obama's performance and of his handling of the economy have slipped. Polls now put both figures slightly above 50 percent.



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Sources: NY Times, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Recovery.gov, Google Maps