Today's Unemployment Numbers

Good news?

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend up in October (+80,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment in the private sector rose, with modest job growth continuing in professional and businesses services, leisure and hospitality, health care, and mining. Government employment continued to trend down. …

Total nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend up in October (+80,000). Over the past 12 months, payroll employment has increased by an average of 125,000 per month. In October, private-sector employment increased by 104,000, with continued job growth in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, health care, and mining. Government employment continued to contract in October.

Not really, no:

Analysts expected an overall job growth number around 95,000, so this falls short of predictions. Even with just the private-sector growth taken into consideration, the number isn't enough to keep up with population growth.

And, as usual with liberals, it gets even worse if you go beneath the covers:

Looking a little deeper into the year-on-year numbers for people not in the work force (and therefore not counted in the jobless rate), those numbers (not seasonally adjusted) increased from October 2010, from 84.878 million to 86.181 million.  People who want work but remain outside the labor force rose from 5.867 million to 5.969 million, although the category of "discouraged workers" dropped from 1.219 million to 967,000.  The seasonally-adjusted numbers show a one-month increase in people who want a job but don't have one from 6.241 million to 6.403 million — a bad sign after last month's decrease in this figure.

So, while it is genuinely good that any jobs are being created, the reality is that Obamanomics simply isn't good for the economy, and never will be.  As much as the liberal Left is going to trumpet the reduction from 9.1% to 9% in the overall unemployment numbers, there's still no reason for long-term optimism here.  Some of them are even admitting it publicly, and some of the more honest are offering a warning:

The Democrats are losing the battle of public perceptions over which party can best improve the economy, according to a new analysis by prominent Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and other strategists.

Greenberg's Study for Democracy Corps, a Democrat-oriented research organization, finds that, "Although voters do not trust either party right now to create jobs, the Republicans are more trusted on the economy, business and big business, and spending and deficits…Democrats are losing the economic argument because right now voters do not see how increased spending helps the economy and they fear increased debt will prevent the economy from growing." …

The Democracy Corps says, "The mood on the economy is as bleak as we have seen it in recent years. By a two-to one ratio, voters are pessimistic about the future of the middle class." And the least optimistic people are union members, white women (both married and unmarried), non-college educated whites, and white voters living in rural areas outside the South. All of these groups have been hit hard by the recession and they will be crucial in the 2012 election.

And they're not favoring Democrats right now.  Without some serious positive economic movement in the next year, it's going to get even worse.

Which means better for America, because with fewer Democrats running the government, the better chance we have to actually get a recovery underway.