Jobless rate puts heat on Obama

WASHINGTON – The jump in the unemployment rate to 10.2 percent, reported Friday, suggests that the job market could take longer than expected to recover and deepens the pressure on President Barack Obama to come up with more immediate solutions.

The jobless rate crossed into double digits last month, from 9.8 percent in September, the Labor Department reported. That is the highest level since 1983 and evidence that the economy, though expanding, has not yet grown enough to end the brutal conditions facing American workers.

A broader measure of joblessness that includes people working part time for lack of full-time positions and those who have given up looking for work out of frustration rose to 17.5 percent from 17 percent.

Economists have been projecting that job growth would resume early in 2010, and the unemployment rate would start coming down by the middle of the year. But that forecast is in doubt because job losses in the last few months are only decelerating very slowly. Typically after a recession, the jobless rate keeps increasing for a few months, but at a more gradual rate. That tapering off hasn’t happened yet.

“This is the worst labor market most of us have ever seen,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo.

Even the good news in the report wasn’t all that good: Employers slashed 190,000 jobs in the month, the sort of cuts found in a run-of-the-mill recession. That figure seems encouraging only when compared to job losses that ran at several times that rate earlier in the year.

The weak numbers confront the Obama administration with a difficult situation. The economy grew at a 3.5 percent rate in the third quarter, as measured by gross domestic product, and the president and his advisers have presented this as evidence that their policies to arrest the downturn are working.

But 15.7 million Americans were unemployed last month. And in mid-October, a majority of adults viewed Obama’s policies as either making the economy either worse (22 percent) or having no effect (35 percent), according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The administration is pursuing policies that, while less ambitious than the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February, provide targeted help for the economy. On Friday, Obama signed legislation that extends unemployment insurance benefits for up to 20 weeks more and renews an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers while expanding eligibility.

But rather than offering a short-term fix for joblessness, the White House is now more focused on a longer-term strategy for fueling the economic recovery. Speaking in the Rose Garden on Friday, Obama said his economic advisers are weighing additional measures to create jobs, including new infrastructure spending, renovations to make buildings more energy efficient, and additional support for U.S. exports.

Private economists said those initiatives are likely to have little immediate effect. “The impact will be pretty minimal,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “They are good things to do. We should be spending more money weatherizing. It will employ some people.”

Critics, especially on the left, are calling on the president to move faster and take initiatives that pay off sooner.

“Every day, it becomes more urgent that the federal government step up to the plate with bold actions to boost job creation,” said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. “Those actions should include urgently needed fiscal relief to state and local governments, community jobs programs, additional investments in infrastructure and green jobs and credit relief to small and medium-sized businesses.”