Four Years Of Bush Economic Policies Leave America's Workforce In Shambles

Today's unemployment report confirms that President Bush will end his four years in office with an economic record worse than any U.S. President in 72 years. In September, the national unemployment rate held at dismal 5.4 percent and over 8 million Americans were looking for work during the month. Sadly, these numbers do not include the thousands of workers who are discouraged and have given up looking for work. Since President Bush took office, not only has the number of jobs created each month fallen short of the President's predictions, job creation has not kept pace with the number of individuals entering the workforce each month. In September, U.S. companies added 96,000 jobs to their payrolls, again far fewer than the White House economists had predicted. In fact, the number of jobs created in August was revised down by roughly 20,000 jobs by the Labor Department. In today's report, there is also no good news for the African American community. African Americans continue to shoulder the greatest burden of the Bush economic downturn with an unemployment rate that remains in the double digits at 10.3 percent. Additionally, the Hispanic American unemployment rate rose in September to 7.1 percent. [more ]