Issue Position: Economy & Jobs

Issue Position

America only works when Americans are working, and far too many Americans aren't working under this president's job-killing policies. During the 2008--2009 recession, the unemployment rate nearly doubled from its norm of about 5 percent to 9.8 percent. In the three years since, America's unemployment rate has never dropped below 8 percent, making this the longest protracted period of high unemployment since the Great Depression. Kentucky's unemployment rate is even higher than the national average.

The rate of "underemployment" or "real unemployment," which takes into account the sharp decline in labor force participation and discouraged workers who have stopped looking for work, is near 15 percent. In total, over 22 million Americans are underemployed and one out of every two recent college graduates is either jobless or underemployed. As a result, new unemployment claims are rising and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, one in seven U.S. residents received food stamps last year, a 70% increase from 2007.

Equally troubling is that fact that for people who have jobs, incomes are falling. When President Obama took office, median household income was $54,797.63. As of the last quarter of 2011, median household income was $52,377.21.

Growth in America's gross domestic product remains weak, is far below the usual increases coming out of a deep recession and is insufficient to reduce unemployment. Oil prices have surged, home values are plummeting and foreclosures are up. Without a major shift in government policy, the prospects for full economic recovery are dim.

One need only examine the harmful economic policies of this Administration to understand why this is so. Over the course of the past three years, politicians and bureaucrats in Washington have dampened business confidence and elevated uncertainty by promoting oppressive regulations and red tape, skyrocketing deficits, a government takeover of our health care system and job-killing tax increases. As a result, the United States is far less hospitable to growth-inducing, job-creating entrepreneurial activity than it was only a few short years ago.

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