Unemployment rates rose in 44 U.S. states in July

Who couldn’t be excited about another 4 years of Obamanomics?

August unemployment not looking good either.

Washington Times — Unemployment rates rose in 44 U.S. states in July, the most states to show a monthly increase in more than three years and a reflection of weak hiring nationwide.

The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates fell in only two states and were unchanged in four.

Unemployment rates rose in nine states that are considered battlegrounds in the presidential election. That trend, if it continued, could pose a threat to President Barack Obama’s re-election bid in less than three months.

Nationwide, hiring improved in July after three months of tepid job gains. But the national unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3 percent from 8.2 percent. Monthly job gains have averaged 150,000 this year. That’s barely enough to accommodate population growth. As a result, the unemployment rate is the same as when the year began.

Still, 31 states gained jobs in July, while 19 lost them. Unemployment rates can rise in a state even when more jobs are created if more people start looking for work. People who are out of work are counted as unemployed only if they’re looking for a job.

In the most closely contested states in the presidential race, unemployment has fallen over the past year. That could help Obama in his contest with GOP candidate Mitt Romney.

But it has started to tick up in recent months. In Nevada, the rate rose to 12 percent in July from 11.6 percent the previous month. That’s the highest rate in the nation, though it’s still much lower than a year ago, when it was 13.8 percent.

And in Michigan, the rate has increased to 9 percent, from 8.5 percent two months earlier.

Unemployment also increased in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.

The rate was unchanged at 7.2 percent in Ohio, the only swing state that didn’t suffer an increase. Still, that rate is down sharply from 8.9 percent a year ago.

Obamanomics: Updated scary jobs chart

Business Insider posted an update of their ‘Scariest Jobs Chart Ever’. It reflects the new jobs numbers which show that the recovery is really just a myth in the minds of Democrats everywhere. Through deception, Democrats tout an unemployment rate of 8.2%. But that is accomplished only by shifting millions of unemployed into the ‘”Not In Labor Force”‘ column.

According to Zero Hedge, the US needs to generate 262k jobs each month to get back to breakeven by end of Obama’s 2nd term. March NFP was a big miss at just 120K. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.2% for one simple reason: the number of people not in the labor force is back to all time highs: 87,897,000.

Business Insider – It’s been a little while since we’ve run this chart, but in honor of that bummer of a jobs report, we thought it would be time to bring it back.

It’s from Calculated Risk, and it shows the pace of this jobs “recovery” vs. that of all other post-recession jobs recoveries.

As you can see, the decline in jobs was far steeper than any other recession by a long shot.

And though generally job gains have picked up, in recent months, the pace of the recovery remains incredibly supbar.

Congressman Hunter demands accurate unemployment numbers, 8.3% phony

About time someone spoke up about the deliberate manipulation of unemployment numbers being perpetrated by the Obama Administration and their apparatchiks in the Democrat media complex.

"We need real numbers, not D.C. numbers," Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., said Thursday. Photo Credit:AP

Washington Times – While the Labor Department reports a surge in private-sector hiring and the nation’s unemployment rate holding steady at 8.3 percent, a closer look at the numbers paints a less flattering picture of the country’s post-recession growth. …

[Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.,] is pushing legislation that would require the Bureau of Labor Statistics to broaden its definition for the unemployment rate. He wants the department to count those who stopped looking for work as well, which would put last month’s rate at 9.8 percent. …

“We just want to know what the truth is, because we can’t make good policy here unless we know what the actual unemployment number is. … We need real numbers, not D.C. numbers,” [Hunter said Thursday.]

Read the original article at Fox News

Gallup: Unemployment back to 9.1%, Underemployment now 19.1%…

President zero jobs. Don’t expect the Democrat-controlled media to report on this.

Gallup — U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 9.1% in February from 8.6% in January and 8.5% in December.

The 0.5-percentage-point increase in February compared with January is the largest such month-to-month change Gallup has recorded in its not-seasonally adjusted measure since December 2010, when the rate rose 0.8 points to 9.6% from 8.8% in November. A year ago, Gallup recorded a February increase of 0.4 percentage points, to 10.3% from 9.9% in January 2011.

As a result, Gallup’s U.S. underemployment measure, which combines the percentage of workers who are unemployed and the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work, increased to 19.1% in February from 18.7% in January. This is an improvement from the 19.9% of February 2011.

Bernanke admits 8.3% unemployment rate is baloney

But Obama and his state-run media will crow about it anyway.

(Bloomberg via Weasel Zippers) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the 8.3 percent rate of unemployment in January understates weakness in the U.S. labor market.

“It is very important to look not just at the unemployment rate, which reflects only people who are actively seeking work,” Bernanke said today in response to questions at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee in Washington. “There are also a lot of people who are either out of the labor force because they don’t think they can find work” or in part-time jobs.

The jobless rate unexpectedly fell to 8.3 percent in January, a government report showed on Feb. 3. Bernanke’s remarks indicate that his view that the labor market is a “long way” from returning to normal hasn’t changed since he used the same phrase when he testified to the House Budget Committee on Feb. 2.

“The 8.3 percent no doubt understates the weakness of the labor market in some broad sense,” Bernanke said today, while noting that some job indicators are improving.

Keep reading…

New scary jobs chart

Unemployment rose to 9.2%. A new scary jobs chart followed in its wake.

Business Insider - For a long time we’ve been going with the same Scariest Jobs Chart Ever, which we ran this morning. It shows how bad this “recovery” has been compared to past ones.

It’s really scary, but we’re confident that we have a new winner.

It shows the average duration of unemployment, and it’s skyrocketing without any hint of slowing down.

Here’s the original scary jobs chart.

Business Insider – This chart measures the percentage of jobs lost during various recessions, and the pace of recovery. As you can see, this recession saw WAY more aggressive job cutting than in the past, and the recovery has been anemic.

Obama’s Green-Car Mandate adds $10K to vehicle and elimates 260,000 jobs

Everything Obama touches turns to crap.

Obama’s CAFE mandate that vehicles average 62 MPG by 2025 “could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs.”

Bye-bye car industry, or what’s left of it anyway.

Americans can’t afford cars anymore as is, but if Obama gets his way, they never will again.

He hates you. He really, really hates you.

(Pondering Principles)
The Detroit News’ David Shepardson has unearthed a study that reveals that President Obama’s radical CAFE mandate “could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs.”

The National Review (h/t Gateway Pundit) The purpose of federal fuel-economy mandates is to keep the agenda of green pols hidden lest the public awaken to their enormous costs. Want to make cars fuel efficient? Tax gas. And commit political suicide. So instead we get the stealthy Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) laws, which forces automakers to compromise cars to government standards, not those of customers.

But sometimes those costs still leak out.

The Detroit News’s dogged David Shepardson has unearthed a study by one of world’s most respected automotive research firms that reveals that President Obama’s radical CAFE mandate that vehicles average — average! — 62 MPG by 2025 “could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs.”

Shepardson is quoting from the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research and the 260,000 job loss figure (consistent with past job losses from CAFE rule hikes) is another dent in White House’s propaganda that Green creates jobs.

The CAR study also reveals that Obama’s NHTSA and EPA have been gaming the figures when it comes to the cost of their new rules. The center’s study predicts it will cost between $3,744 and $9,790 per vehicle, while the agencies have low-balled the figure at $770 to $3,500 per vehicle.

The resulting costs would shrink the new-car market, with 5.5 million potential buyers disappearing (and manufacturing jobs with them) by 2025. That assumes that the auto fleet can even be built to meet such an absurd spec. Currently, no car — much less the average — meets 62 mpg. Indeed, only a handful of small vehicles meet the 35-mpg fleet-wide standard mandated in just five years.

As a result, there is more gaming of the system, as automakers pour lobbying money into D.C. to effect regulatory agency rules handing credits to electric cars — whether customers buy them or not.

This is change, Obama-style: More rules, more lobbyists, more corruption of government standards. It all adds up to more jobs for Washington bureaucrats, and fewer for the rest of the country.

Obama blames ATM machines and airport kiosks for record unemployment

Bump in the road

I guess we now know what those “bumps in the road” to economic recovery are – ATM machines and airport kiosks!

One must wonder if it even occurs to ‘the smartest man to ever be president’ that someone has to produce, deliver, set up, and service those ATMs and kiosks sold and used all over the world. An ATM machine employs more people than a bank teller, who employs no one.

No, the bumps in the road are Liberal politicians wanting to “fundamentally transform America.”

Meanwhile, back in the real world that Barack Obama has never been a part of, CNSNews.com is reporting that 28 months after Congress passed President Obama’s signature economic stimulus law, and nearly one year after he declared the summer of 2010 to be “Recovery Summer,” 1.9 million fewer people are employed.

Michelle Malkin says, “ATMs and ticket kiosks are not the enemies of economic success. These are—”

Kiosk bumps

FOX Nation (h/t Gateway Pundit) - President Obama explained to NBC News that the reason companies aren’t hiring is not because of his policies, it’s because the economy is so automated.

[…] “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”

h/t Hotair

Obama: Be patient, I’m ruining the economy as fast as I can

After lying to the gullible American public for two years that thanks to his policies the economy was on the rebound, Obama has been forced to admit that things aren’t going to be improving soon.

As usual, and guaranteed to be a major theme of his re-election campaign, Obama repeated the tiresome excuse that what he inherited was just too much to overcome in four years time. Of course, other presidents who inherited far worse, like Ronald Reagan, managed to turn things around, but the smartest man to have ever been president, Barack Hussein Obama, requires eight years.

AP (h/t Weasel Zippers)  – President Barack Obama says people need to be patient about the economic recovery and that training workers for manufacturing jobs will help with the turnaround.

The recession didn’t happen overnight and won’t end that way, either, the president said Saturday in his weekly radio and online address.

“It’s going to take time,” Obama said.

Recent polling found broad disapproval with Obama’s handling of the economy as the 2012 presidential election takes shape. It reached 59 percent in a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Job growth slowed sharply in May and unemployment inched up to 9.1 percent. Economic indicators also showed that manufacturers cut 5,000 jobs last month. Those were the first job losses in that sector in seven months.

No president since World War II has won a second term with a jobless rate above 7.2 percent, and Obama’s options for achieving faster economic growth before the November 2012 election appear limited.

Half of last month’s new jobs came from McDonalds

The new economic numbers and America’s 9.1% unemployment are even worse than they look on the surface.

Half the piddling 54,000 jobs that were created were burger flippers and fry friers at McDonalds.

McDonalds is a great corporation, but a strong economy, and especially that of a superpower can’t be based on happy meals.

Weekly Standard (h/t Weasel Zippers) – According to the unemployment data released this morning, the economy added only 54,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent.

However, this report from MarketWatch suggests data is much worse than that:McDonald’s ran a big hiring day on April 19 — after the Labor Department’s April survey for the payrolls report was conducted — in which 62,000 jobs were added.

That’s not a net number, of course, and seasonal adjustment will reduce the Hamburglar impact on payrolls. (In simpler terms — restaurants always staff up for the summer; the Labor Department makes allowance for this effect.) Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000.

The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate  Keep reading…

Relatedly, here’s the scary-ass chart of the week. Notice most recoveries resemble a ‘V’ or a ‘U’ shape. But we are experiencing a spaghetti recovery.

Business Insider – The classic Calculated Risk jobs chart looks horrible after today’s big whiff. The “recovery” has clearly flattened out.

Obamanomics: unemployment jumps to 9.1%

(graph GWP)

The U.S. economy continues to sink under the weight of the Obama Administration’s albatross thrown around its neck. Debt, tens of thousands of pages of new regulations, the shadow of Obamacare, and new taxes keep employers from daring to hire in such uncertain times.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Employment rose far less than expected in May to record its weakest reading since September, while the jobless rate rose to 9.1 percent as high energy prices and the effects of Japan’s earthquake bogged down the economy.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 54,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, with private employment rising 83,000, the least amount since June. Government payrolls dropped 29,000.

The Obama Administration says it’s nothing that another five and half years of Obama policies won’t cure.

The Washington Times reports that the White House downplayed the disappointing May jobs report, President Obama’s chief economist Austan Goolsbee calling the latest number one of the “bumps on the road to recovery.”

We’ve been hearing about these “bumps on the road” for over two-years. The “bumps” are what Democrats have for brains.

The Heritage Foundation isn’t buying any of the Obama Administration’s spin. The report stank to high heaven and team Obama’s policies have made things much worse.

Heritage - Unemployment in the United States increased again last month to 9.1 percent, with the Obama economy adding only 54,000 jobs—the fewest in eight months. Today’s terrible jobs report is much worse than expected. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had grimly predicted 160,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent earlier this week.

But despite the dismal news that 13.9 million Americans remain unemployed, President Barack Obama is holding a victory party today at a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, trumpeting the only jobs he can manage to create—those bought and paid for directly by the U.S. taxpayer.

The President’s celebration comes amid word that Fiat SpA will pay $500 million for the U.S. government’s remaining 6 percent stake in Chrysler Group LLC, taking majority control of the company. For the Obama Administration, that’s news enough to signify a corporate turnaround following its bailout of Chrysler and GM in 2009, a bright spot in a day where millions are out of work. But what the President likely won’t mention is the continuing costs of the auto bailout that have fallen on the backs of U.S. taxpayers.

According to the government’s own reports, those costs come up to a staggering $14 billion, out of $80 billion shelled out to bail out Chrysler and General Motors in 2009. Then there’s other subsidies provided to Chrysler, as well as other automakers, including a plea for a new $3.5 billion loan from the Department of Energy to fund retooling of plants for more energy-efficient cars. But if you listen to the President (or an ad from the Democratic National Committee), his actions are responsible for saving an industry. Not so fast.

The Heritage Foundation’s James Gattuso explains that Chrysler and General Motors are where they’re at today because of a bankruptcy process, not because of a costly bailout that could set a dangerous precedent down the road.

President Obama should get credit for finally forcing the two into bankruptcy in early 2009. Unfortunately, however, it was accompanied by a massive inflow of taxpayer cash, government ownership of the two firms, and a manipulation of the bankruptcy process to advantage politically favored interests (notably the unions) at the expense of shareholders.

Going forward, the danger is that this intervention will become a precedent, legitimizing bailouts as a standard tool of economic policy. Such a result would be disastrous not just to taxpayers’ wallets but to the economy as a whole as firms (and investors) evade the consequences of their own decisions.

And if you hear the President brag today about the Detroit Three’s increase in market share in May, take it with a grain of salt. The Detroit Free Press‘ Sarah A. Webster writes that “the gain was largely the result of the sizable setback Japanese automakers endured as a result of the horrific March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which devastated the country and left much of its industry scrambling to get back to work, to try to build microchips and cars, among other products.” That’s no cause for celebration, either.

And when the President brags about Chrysler’s increased sales, keep another thing in mind, too. It’s not the President’s favored green cars that Chrysler customers are snapping up—it’s Chrysler’s SUV, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, that has lifted the automaker.

Then there’s this: Last week, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) hyperbolically stated “we would be driving foreign cars” absent the President’s actions. Today, the President will celebrate his hand-picked buyer, Italian-automaker Fiat, taking a controlling stake of Chrysler. But don’t forget that the company’s Italian CEO Sergio Marchionne once called the American taxpayers “shysters” for the high rates on the loans Chrysler demanded.

As always, the devil is in the details, and they likely won’t be invited to the President’s victory party today. You probably won’t hear mention of the other losers in the auto bailout, either, like the shareholders who suffered so President Obama could financially reward his political allies at the United Auto Workers union. Unfortunately, they’re not the only losers in the Obama economy, as America learned with the unemployment numbers that came out this morning.

US unemployment rate leaps back up to 9.0%

Meet the real reason why Obama finally decided to give the okay to take down bin Laden. Americans are supposed to overlook the crappy economy and sing the praises of Rambo-in-Chief Obama.

Reading the different reports by the mainstream media on these pathetic numbers is an exercise new normal insanity. They all do their best do paint a rosy picture, that the worst is far behind.

Yet, 9% is 9%, and the truth be told, the real numbers are still around 17%.

And although the mainstream media forgets to mention it, of the jobs that were created, a quarter of them were as burger flippers at McDonalds!

Market Watch (h/t GWP) - The U.S. economy gained 244,000 jobs in April, the biggest increase in almost a year, but the nation’s unemployment rate rose to 9.0%, according to government data.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch predicted a net gain of 175,000 jobs. Payrolls for March and February, based on a survey of business establishments, were also revised up by a combined 41,000, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Yet a separate survey of U.S. households found that the labor force declined in April by 190,000 to 139.7 million, pushing the jobless rate up to 9.0% from 8.8% in March. It was the first increase since last November.

U.S. unemployment claims surge

The economy continues down the toilet, which is why Rambo-in-Chief Obama is going to Ground Zero today to take credit for single-handedly taking down Osama bin Laden. He’ll do anything and everything to distract Americans from the financial train wreck headed their way.

Back in the real world, initial claims rose to 474,000 in the week ended April 30, up 43,000 from the week before. Economists were expecting a drop of 74,000. Oops, again…

Yahoo News – The number of Americans filing for their first week of unemployment benefits surged last week, the government said Thursday.

The number of initial claims rose to 474,000 in the week ended April 30, up 43,000 from the week before. It was the highest level since August, and a big surprise to economists, who were expecting initial claims to drop to 400,000 in the latest report.

Initial claims have been gradually trending lower over the last year, but their path has been far from steady.

The number of Americans filing for ongoing claims rose 74,000 to 3,733,000 in the week ended April 23, the latest data available.

938,000 turned down for job at McDonalds

People used to joke about working at McDonalds or a related ‘McJob’. But in Obama’s new normal, landing work at McDonalds is the most many people can hope for. It’s ironic considering Liberals’ war on food and especially McDonalds, but in an Obama economy where business is the enemy, flipping burgers is about all that’s left.

McDonalds just hired 62,000 people in the U.S., but that means that some 938,000 applicants were turned down.

Do you want fries with that?

The number of applications for unemployment benefits in the U.S. rose last week, a sign, writes Bloomberg, that progress in the labor market may be fading. Jobless claims increased by 25,000 to 429,000 in the week ended April 23, the most in three months, according to data from the Labor Department in Washington today.

Bloomberg — McDonald’s Corp., the world’s biggest restaurant chain, said it hired 24 percent more people than planned during an employment event this month.

McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000.

The April 19 national hiring day was the company’s first, said Danya Proud, a McDonald’s spokeswoman. She declined to disclose how many of the jobs were full- versus part-time. McDonald’s employed 400,000 workers worldwide at company-owned stores at the end of 2010, according to a company filing.

Earlier this month, McDonald’s said sales at stores open at least 13 months climbed 2.9 percent in the U.S. after it attracted more diners with items such as beverages and the Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus burger. The fast-food chain has about 14,000 stores in the U.S. and more than 18,000 abroad. About 80 percent of all McDonald’s stores are franchised.

Gallup: U.S. unemployment hits 10.3% in February

Don’t know why the market is up and people are celebrating. According to Gallup today, things really suck.

______________________________

Gallup (h/t Weasel Zippers)

PRINCETON, NJ — Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.3% in February — up from 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is now essentially the same as the 10.4% at the end of February 2010.

Underemployment, a measure that combines part-time workers wanting full-time work with those who are unemployed, surged in February to 19.9%. This resulted from the combination of a sharp 0.5-point increase since the end of January in the percentage unemployed and a 0.5-point increase in the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work. Underemployment is now higher than it was at this point a year ago (19.7%).

Underemployment Surges in February

Underemployment, a measure that combines part-time workers wanting full-time work with those who are unemployed, surged in February to 19.9%. This resulted from the combination of a sharp 0.5-point increase since the end of January in the percentage unemployed and a 0.5-point increase in the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work. Underemployment is now higher than it was at this point a year ago (19.7%).

 

B.O.’s illegal moratorium forces another energy company into bankruptcy

Downed bird thanks to Obama

Citing “clear and convincing evidence,” a U.S. district court judge has already held the Obama administration’s Interior Department in contempt for continuing to enforce a moratorium on oil drilling after he told the department it had no right to do so.

Generalissimo Obama is in contempt of 2 Federal court orders, but as  Investors Business Daily wrote:

“Ordinarily there are consequences for such defiance. But this administration fears nothing because there’s simply no precedent for a government trampling the law with such apparent impunity.”

But the Obama Administration could care less, and now another energy-related company is paying the price for Obama’s hubris and radical enviromentalcase agenda.

Ed Lasky at  The American Thinker reports: (h/t GWP)

On top of tens of thousands of workers losing their jobs when Obama imposed a drilling moratorium by executive order (and fudging what scientists and experts believed in order to justify his moratorium) now comes news that Seahawk Drilling, a major publicly-held drilling services company, has declared bankruptcy due to the sharp decline in Gulf drilling work.

From USA Today: Seahawk Drilling Inc. said it has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to sell its fleet of offshore drilling rigs to a competitor for $105 million.

Seahawk, which announced the deal with Hercules Offshore Inc. Friday, has been hurt by a slowdown in Gulf of Mexico drilling after the BP oil spill last April. The government halted drilling in deep waters and imposed tough new rules that have curtained all energy exploration in U.S. waters.

Ed Lasky continues, “Employees will be let go; shareholders are suffering big losses as the stock plunges. Gulf communities have already been stricken by big job losses and declines in state tax revenues. We have become even more dangerously dependent on overseas sources of crude and prices have skyrocketed as Obama turned the handle to the off position when it comes to Gulf oil drilling.”

This is the most arrogant, power-hungry, and criminal administration in American history. And coming after the Clintons, that’s really saying something.

Real unemployment at more than 20 percent

The Endless “Summer of Recovery”.

Double-dip recession avoided. Went directly to triple dip.

______________________________

-James Corsi’s Red Alert

The unemployment picture is not the 9.8 percent as reported for November by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the mainstream media, but more than 20 percent, once we take into consideration those in the labor force who are considered long-term discouraged workers who have given up looking for work after a year or longer.

A 20 percent unemployment rate demands comparison with the peak unemployment rates of the Great Depression when unemployment reached 25 percent in 1933.

The reason for the difference between the typically reported unemployment rates and the true unemployment rate is that during the Clinton administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics redefined unemployment to exclude “discouraged workers,” those who had given up looking for a job because there were no jobs to be had.

Under the rules defined by the Clinton administration, discouraged workers were counted only if they had been looking for work for less than a year.

Economist John Williams, author of the “Shadow Statistics” newsletter, has been warning since the start of 2010 that the drop in officially reported unemployment from 10.0 percent in December to 9.7 percent in January 2010 was generated by manipulating the statistics, in January, for instance, by neglecting to factor out seasonal-adjustment distortions including holiday season hiring in retail sales that typically extend into the first months of the following year.

In March 2010, the Commerce Department reported that personal income fell in 42 states, continuing a decline in personal income recorded since 2000.

In the same month, the Commerce Department also reported for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes, the Washington Times reported.

While wages and other job-related income fell by a record $206 billion in 2009 to $7.84 trillion, transfer payments from the government such as unemployment benefits and Social Security checks grew by $231 billion to $2.1 trillion.

Meanwhile, the amount of taxes paid by individual Americans fell by $325 billion to $2.1 trillion, as nearly 6 million people lost their jobs and were no longer paying payroll taxes.

The inevitable conclusion is that American reliance on government is at an all-time high, as Washington Times declared in the headline of its article.