On Your Own

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"You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging
For your next meal.

"How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?"

Bob Dylan
Like a Rolling Stone

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In less than a year, Bob Dylan will be 70 years old.

That's probably hard to comprehend for a lot of folks who can remember the lanky twenty–something fellow who burst onto the music scene in the early 1960s and composed songs that became anthems for social and political movements in America, a seemingly hesitant troubadour of unrest.

But those ballads may be due for a comeback, and, in the years to come, the twilight of Dylan's career may be remembered as a revival of the songs he wrote when his career was dawning half a century earlier.

I say that because, with each passing day, I get a greater sense of a growing unease and frustration. The middle class is being squeezed out of existence. People with college degrees, even advanced college degrees, have been out of work for months, even years. Many are losing the unemployment benefits that have kept them going — and with them, they are losing their faith in the future and in their leaders.

Speaking of unemployment benefits, I heard some people speaking optimistically recently about the fact that initial unemployment claims were below expectations for the first time in four weeks.

But Jeffry Bartash of MarketWatch quoted Brian Levitt of OppenheimerFunds, who wisely warned that the number of new claims (473,000) is "still an elevated number."

No kidding.

"Nevertheless," wrote Bartash, "investors welcomed the news and U.S. stocks rose modestly in early Thursday trades."

What do you suppose is the message that is being received by long–term unemployed Americans and those who are partially employed or "underemployed?"

Do you think it could be that, as long as you have deep pockets, deep enough to invest in stocks — and political campaigns — you won't be abandoned by your government, but if you're an individual who has worked hard for years to feed his family and keep a roof over the heads of his spouse and children, but you lose your job, not because of anything you've done but because of the mistakes of the higher–ups, then you're not even close to being too big to fail — and your government will throw you under the bus just to show that it can pinch pennies?

"[T]here are well over 14 million Americans without a paying job," writes Mortimer Zuckerman of U.S. News & World Report, "so the level of discontent is very high. Just how are they going to regain control of their lives?"

I've heard a lot of people worrying about Barack Obama's plunging job approval numbers. And, I'll grant you, those numbers are alarming, especially when you compare them to the incredible approval numbers that accompanied him into office (when, if you want to be technical about it, there was nothing, other than rhetoric, of which to approve or disapprove) or some of the numbers of his predecessors.

For example, Gallup currently has Obama's approval rating at 43% and his disapproval rating at 50%. That was the same approval rating George H.W. Bush got in a Gallup poll about two weeks after he lost the presidency to Bill Clinton in 1992. It is also the same approval rating Ronald Reagan — the same Ronald Reagan who is now revered as a conservative icon — had when his party suffered setbacks in the 1982 midterm elections.

And it's lower than any of the job approval findings for Clinton right around the time of the 1994 midterm elections — when Clinton's party lost control of both chambers of Congress.

Obama and the Democrats insist that things are better than folks think, a proposition that seems to me to be so fantastic that it belongs in a Monty Python movie. When Joe Biden, for example, talks about how great the economy is doing, he sounds to me like the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," swearing that his injuries, which left him with no limbs, were merely "flesh wounds."

Maybe they are right — it's a tough point to prove or disprove, with much of it relying on the largely unverifiable claim that jobs have been "saved," which has an almost evangelical ring to it — but, if they are right, the president's got a helluva publicity problem.

And it is a perception to which Obama himself appears to contribute willingly, sometimes eagerly. There is a growing disconnect between this president and the people that Obama is unable — or unwilling — to see. Sometimes — the mosque near ground zero controversy is a good, and timely, example — he seems determined to take a position that is practically guaranteed to antagonize the most people.

To be fair, though — even though it is part of the overall picture — that doesn't specifically address the economy in general or joblessness in particular. But, for that matter, neither did Obama last Labor Day.

It seemed like the ideal time to encourage — or even inspire — the jobless, maybe talk about what he was doing to promote job creation. At the very least, it was a time to reassure the unemployed that he hadn't forgotten that they were hurting and he was doing everything he could to relieve their pain.

But he never did. His focus on that day was on campaigning for health care reform and preparing to address the school children of America.

When you narrow it down to that, however, it's more of the same. He claims that he's been working on and promoting job creation since Day One, but many of the unemployed have seen no evidence of it. They don't know if he's arrogant or flippant or if he takes it for granted that the voters will never turn on him, that they will always adore him as they did in 2008.

But, whichever it is, he's living in a fool's paradise.

You can be sure that the voters do know that, nationally, unemployment is at 9.6%. It was about three percentage points lower when Obama was elected.

Even those voters who are the least knowledgeable of economic theories can tell you that doesn't sound like progress, never mind those who have gone farther in their economic studies than the principles of supply and demand.

Yet I continue to hear the same excuses I've heard since 2008 — this is Bush's fault and all criticism of Obama is based in racism.

The voters can't hold Obama responsible this year. He isn't on the ballot. But more than one–third of the Senate seats, all of the House seats and three–quarters of the governorships are on the ballot. And many of those jobs are currently held by Democrats.

It's no surprise that Congress gets low marks from voters. Congress always gets low marks from voters. But who is affected the most really depends on which party is in the majority. And, with so many Democrats holding congressional offices, a big thumbs down from the voters in 2010 is an expression of dissatisfaction with the Democrats that seems likely to be transferred to the ballot box.

It's really pretty simple, isn't it?

So, Democrats, let me ask you this. How's that working for you?

I can tell you what the latest congressional approval ratings say:

• Let's start with the best news for Congress. It comes from the Associated Press/GfK, which reports that 24% of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing. That's a pretty significant drop, though, from the response to polls three and four months after Obama took the oath of office — when nearly 40% of respondents approved of the job Congress was doing.
  
  That might not sound great, especially compared to the 60s Obama was receiving around the same time — but, in the context of the history of this kind of polling, you can take my word for it. It's pretty impressive.


• CBS News chose to emphasize the fact that, in its recent poll, Obama's job aproval rating went up slightly.
  
  But, while you had to hunt for it, the poll found that only 22% approved of Congress' job performance.


• The NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey has been polling cell phone users only.
  
  The fact that those respondents are all cell phone users suggests that they are among the most receptive to emerging technology, but they haven't been as receptive to Congress, with only 21% approving of the job Congress was doing.
  
  And these surveys have consistently shown that the cell phone users are unimpressed with the direction of the country. Currently, the survey reports, 58% believe the country is going in the wrong direction.


• Gallup's findings were even more discouraging, in part because Gallup's surveys usually are the most reliable.
  
  And Gallup found that only 19% approved of the job Congress was doing.
  
  Like Associated Press/GfK, Gallup found much higher approval ratings for Congress in the spring of 2009, but that approval has declined steadily ever since.
  
  On the plus side, 19% approval represents an improvement over Gallup's finding from last spring. But it shows virtually no change in Congress' rating this summer.

I guess the bottom line is that, if you're out of work, you're on your own. Brush up on your Dylan.

If you've got a job, do whatever you have to do to keep it — even if you hate it.

And if you're a congressional Democrat running for re–election, you've got plenty of problems. Many of those Democrats, I am convinced, will not be successful in November. Make room in the unemployment line.

In the meantime, maybe Obama will say something — anything — about joblessness on Labor Day.

But don't hold your breath.

The Way the Wind Blows

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"You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows."

Bob Dylan

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The House joined the Senate today in supporting an extension of unemployment benefits.

The unemployed will welcome the money. Rent must be paid. Food must be purchased. Clothes, too — and if you're unemployed and you've got minor children, you've got back–to–school items (clothing, notebooks, textbooks) to think about as well.

Jobs are gone, but day–to–day expenses continue.

But, in many households, even the basics have been put on hold for the last couple of months because Congress could not agree to extend benefits.

I know a lot of people who have been out of work for a long time. Folks in Congress like to describe the unemployed as unmotivated, lacking ambition, preferring to collect from the government than find a job. But the problem is that there just haven't been any jobs out there — and no one in Washington has been making much of an effort to encourage job creation.

None of the unemployed sought this, and none (to my knowledge) would rather live on unemployment checks than paychecks. But what choice have they had?

Both the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for the way they have allowed unemployed Americans to become their political pawns.

Since Democrats like to talk so much about blame, let's get that part out of the way from the start, shall we?

This whole thing really got started when the Republicans in Congress — who had no problem with spending money they didn't have back when they controlled Congress and the White House and then needed the Democrats' help to pass the banking bailout in the fall of 2008 — have rediscovered their frugal roots. Thus, when the opportunity came up — in an election year — to strike a blow for PR by refusing to extend unemployment benefits until they could be demonstrably funded, they took it.

Took it? Hell, they jumped at it.

Then Congress took its Fourth of July vacation. Happy Independence Day.

Now, Congress is on the verge of dismissing for its summer vacation. And, when it returns, many lawmakers will be preoccupied with their campaigns for re–election back home — so it's unlikely that anything will get done.

Polls have been showing that Americans have been more worried about jobs than anything else for quite awhile. And they're understandably surly about the lack of interest they perceive in their lawmakers.

So, earlier this week, Barack Obama took the opportunity to publicly call for an extension of the benefits and criticize the Republicans he so eagerly sought to appease last year.

Don't get me wrong. Obama was right to criticize the Republicans. But he and the Democrats deserve just as much blame as their Republican counterparts. Obama did not exercise his presidential authority and insist that Congress remain in session back in the late spring/early summer until something was done about unemployment benefits.

And the unemployed were made to suffer some more.

Now, with all indicators showing that the Democrats are facing major setbacks at the polls in November, they have decided that they prefer not to alienate a group as large as the unemployed/underemployed/partially employed. So they belatedly passed the benefits extension today. Presumably, Obama will sign it into law soon.

But that's why this bill was passed today. Neither party wanted to be seen as hostile to people who are down on their luck. They both want the unemployed to vote for them in November. They both would like to save money — but they both want to be elected more.

Shame on both of you.

What's Your Point?

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"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Plato

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I won't pretend to represent every one of the millions of Americans who are unemployed or partially employed or underemployed.

But I am one of those Americans who has been jobless for more than six months — which, at one time, seemed like a l–o–o–o–ng time to be between jobs but, with increasing numbers of Americans reporting being out of work for a year or more, that bar clearly has been adjusted.

Anyway, as I say, I don't claim to represent everyone who is out of work. But I have a question for the Democrats in Congress, and I think most of the unemployed would be interested in the answer:

If we agree with you that the recession began while Bush was president and that the uncontrolled vertical dive began while Bush was president, will you focus all of your efforts on encouraging job creation?

Because I've never disputed the fact that Bush was in charge when the economic avalanche began. And if you've been waiting for us to acknowledge that, it seems like you could have saved a lot of time — and perhaps a lot of lives — by calling for a public condemnation of the Bush administration back around the time that Barack Obama took the oath of office.

Fact is, you probably still could get a majority of Americans to agree that it's Bush's fault — but that majority grows smaller between public opinion surveys. Maybe that is because, after 1½ years in office, Obama owns the economy now. Same as he owns the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And he clearly owns those things that weren't pre–existing conditions when he took office — like the increased federal debt and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Every president reaches a point where everything he inherited from the previous administration becomes his. No president starts with a clean slate (except metaphorically), but his slate inevitably fills rapidly as the previous administration's chickens come home to roost.

It seems to me that FDR's Lend–Lease policy could be applied (with some revision) to the unemployment problem.

• In the 1940s, England represented the last pillar of western civilization against the oppressive Nazi regime. In the early 21st century, the unemployed are the last pillar of a shaky economy.
  
  FDR knew that the defense and survival of England was critical to the United States, even though the two nations were separated by an ocean. And today, the economic survival of the United States depends on the millions of unemployed Americans who want to work, but there are no jobs to be found.
  
  They need jobs to have money to put into the economic engine. Until they get those jobs, they still need to feed themselves and their families, they still need to clothe themselves and their families, and they still need a place, however modest it may be, to protect them from the wind and the rain and the snow.
  
  Yet Congress adjourned for its summer vacation without extending unemployment benefits.


• In 1940, FDR walked a fine line as he sought to help England repel the Nazis without committing the United States to war. He proposed Lend–Lease, which would allow the United States to lend the British war material.
  
  FDR compared the program to putting out a neighbor's house fire. "What do I do in such a crisis?" he asked. "I don't say, 'Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it.' I don't want $15 — I want my garden hose back after the fire is over."
  
  In other words, get rid of the threat first.
  
  Unemployment benefits are like that garden hose. They aren't putting out the fire that has raged in the American economy for more than two years now. But they are keeping the fire from getting worse. They put money in people's pockets so they can buy food and clothes and pay rent.
  
  So why take away that hose now? If we can agree that the recession began while Bush was president, can't we agree that the vast majority of the jobless did not bring this misery upon themselves?
  
  If we can agree that FDR's house fire analogy can be adapted to today's economy, doesn't it make sense to put the fire out before arguing over whether it was arson or accidental?
  
  Unemployment benefits keep people going. They don't make everything possible. But they allow the unemployed to pay for the bare necessities while they wait for conditions to improve.


• Those benefits may be extended when Congress returns later this month, but why put the jobless through unnecessary anxiety?
  
  The unemployed don't care who is to blame. Well, they do, but first they just want jobs. That's the part that the Democrats don't seem to get, and that can be frustrating for most people because the Republicans didn't seem to get it, either.
  
  That's why there was such hope for the Obama presidency when he was the president–elect. A majority of Americans believed that, at last, they had elected a president who got it. The fact that they were wrong has been painful for many to accept.
  
  Doesn't it seem a little childish to be doing things this way?

Extending unemployment benefits is the best way I know of to honor Plato's admonition to be kind.

For all of the unemployed are fighting a hard battle, harder than the employed may ever know.

Imperial Hubris

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"Mr. Obama and the Democrats have wasted the once–in–a–lifetime opportunity handed to them in the 2008 election. They did not focus on jobs, jobs, jobs as their primary mission, and they did not call on Americans to join in a bold national effort (which would have required a great deal of shared sacrifice) to solve a wide range of very serious problems."

Bob Herbert
New York Times

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At least once in every presidency, it seems that a president is said to have squandered a golden opportunity that had been given to him by the voters or fate or whatever.

More than once, for example, I have heard George W. Bush criticized for failing to use September 11 as a way to unite a divided America in a common cause. In fact, he did precisely the opposite. He exploited it for political gain. He used it to drive wedges between people, between races, between faiths.

I will always believe that Bush was a terrible president, but, in all fairness, he did nothing most other presidents did not do. He just had far worse results than most — perhaps because he utilized far worse tactics than most.

What did he do?

Well, he bought into the myth that the president is infallible. And when a president is seduced by that particular myth, inevitably he makes at least one bad choice — and then spends the rest of his presidency, if not his life, justifying and rationalizing.

I don't know when this idea of infallibility took hold. But most presidents seem to have concluded — even if they entered the presidency as "men of the people" — that they know best. The transformation seems almost biblical. Apparently, all one must do to become infallible is to repeat the presidential oath of office.

Maybe there is something magical about that oath. Or maybe the American people are just natural enablers. That might explain a lot.

I suppose the attitude at its most extreme was summed up best by Richard Nixon, who told David Frost, "[W]hen the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."

I have seen no evidence that any other president crossed some criminal threshold in his actions, but history sure is loaded with bad presidential decisions.

And one of the worst may turn out to be Barack Obama's decision to emphasize health care reform over job creation when his presidency began — even though job losses had been increasing for months prior to his inauguration, and they continued, sometimes at alarming monthly levels, through his first year in office. (I criticized Obama in this blog last Labor Day when he declined to make any speeches about the nation's joblessness crisis — a decision that all too clearly demonstrated how much he cared about the unemployed.)

Despite occasional lip service, this president has done little in defense of the unemployed. He only seemed to discover the problem after his party lost its filibuster–proof majority in the Senate with Scott Brown's upset victory in Massachusetts.

That has been a tragic mistake.

The appearance of bipartisanship — so fervently desired that it was claimed to have been achieved if even a single Republican vote was drawn to the Democrats' side in either the House or the Senate — took greater precedence for Obama.

"Employment is the No. 1 issue for most ordinary Americans," writes Bob Herbert of the New York Times. "Their anxiety on this front only grows as they watch teachers, firefighters and police officers lining up to walk the unemployment plank as state and local governments wrestle with horrendous budget deficits.

"And what do these worried Americans see the Obama administration doing? It's doubling down on the war in Afghanistan, trying somehow to build a nation from scratch in the chaos of a combat zone."

From just about this time last year (when Democrat Al Franken was declared the winner in Minnesota) until this past January (when Brown won the seat that had belonged to Ted Kennedy), the Democrats could have done anything they wanted and the Republicans would have been virtually powerless to stop them. Why didn't they?

Why didn't they?

It's no wonder to me that people feel a disconnect between themselves and their government.

Want to know what really astonishes me? The administration's blase attitude toward unemployment in general has been stunning, but its apparent lack of interest in the joblessness epidemic among the nation's older workers truly is appalling.

Perhaps Obama isn't as smart as I gave him credit for. I mean, the numbers have shown that those who routinely vote in midterm elections are not the liberals or the young or the blacks — the groups that showed up in unprecedented numbers to elect Obama in 2008. Midterm voters tend to be older Americans. And CNN reported a few days ago that older Americans, particularly those 55 and older, who find themselves out of work face an especially daunting task in finding new jobs.

Doesn't common sense suggest that a president whose party holds majorities in both houses of Congress would want to do anything he could to appease older voters in a midterm election year? Including promoting legislation that would reward employers for hiring older Americans?

But Obama and the Democrats in Congress look backward instead of forward, assigning blame instead of standing up in defense of the jobless. They aren't accomplishing much for the unemployed, are they? A bill that would have extended jobless benefits through November failed. And, while Obama and the Democrats are justifiably proud of their achievement in passing health care reform, the truth in America today is that many must choose between health insurance and their daily expenses. Guess which one wins?

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"The Obama administration feels it should get a great deal of credit for its economic stimulus efforts, its health care initiative, its financial reform legislation, its vastly increased aid to education and so forth. And maybe if we were grading papers, there would be a fair number of decent marks to be handed out."

Bob Herbert

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"By nearly 2 to 1," Herbert says, "respondents to the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll believed the United States is on the wrong track. ... Mr. Obama is paying dearly for his tin ear on this topic. Fifty–four percent of respondents believed he does not have a clear plan for creating jobs. Only 45 percent approved of his overall handling of the economy, compared with 48 percent who disapproved."

Some of Obama's diehard apologists may think that is an aberration, but the truth is that other polls (NBC News/Wall Street Journal, Ipsos/McClatchy, Associated Press/GfK, ABC News/Washington Post) have reported similar, if not worse (Rasmussen) findings in recent weeks.

Things may well look different to most people three or four years from now, when the health care reforms are going to start to kick in. But right now, as Herbert points out, "Destitution is beckoning for those whose unemployment benefits are running out."

No matter what the Labor Department's figures tell you in a few days, most of America's unemployed could probably tell you they've had a bellyful of change.

But they're running short of hope.

Bunning's Beanball

When I was a kid, there was a colloquialism that was still popular in baseball. It may not be in popular use anymore, but Sen. Jim Bunning, R–Ky., could be bringing it back.

The colloquialism is "beanball," which described a pitch that was deliberately thrown at the head of the batter at the plate. Sometimes, pitchers throw what is called a "brushback pitch" as a means of intimidating batters, but those pitches aren't intended to hit batters — and they usually don't unless the pitcher who throws them does not have good control of his pitches.

A beanball, though, is a pitch that is believed to be aimed deliberately at a batter's head, and, whether it hits its target or not, it often results in the ejection of the pitcher from the game and, frequently, suspensions from future games.

Decades ago, Bunning was a major–league pitcher. I don't think he had a reputation for throwing beanballs. He was known for having a repertoire of effective pitches at his command. When he was brought up to the majors by the Detroit Tigers, he was described as possessing "an excellent curve ball, a confusing delivery and a sneaky fast ball," and he used them to accomplish the rarest of feats for a pitcher — a perfect game — in 1964.

In those days, Bunning was believed to have great control over his array of pitches. Now, however, as Bunning, 78, is about to step down as a U.S. senator, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wonders, justifiably, if Bunning is "down to only one pitch: the screwball."

Recently, Bunning — utilizing one of the archaic rules of the Senate — loudly objected to an extension of unemployment benefits, supposedly because the source of funding for it had not been identified.

So, instead of taking steps that could ease, if only temporarily, the suffering facing the nation's unemployed, the door was flung wide open for more political infighting.

"[T]here were many ways in which Democrats could have passed the extension earlier," writes Milbank. "But then they would have missed the satisfaction of fighting with Bunning."

And 21st century Democrats appear to prefer to play the blame game instead of actually doing something about the troublesome problem of unemployment. Consequently, Bunning's objection played into their hands. "Democrats can hardly believe the gift Bunning has given them," Milbank writes.

"The fact is my friends on the other side of the aisle are opposing extending unemployment benefits for people who are out of work," declared Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada — who has not decided to retire, although the voters of his state appear to be on the verge of making that decision for him.

Supposedly, no one in the Senate — not even Bunning — objects to extending the benefits. Bunning says he is making a stand against increasing the deficit. And that has given Democras like Vice President Joe Biden, whose party has had more than a year to encourage job creation but has not done so, an opportunity to say things like, "At a time when so many families are in so much pain we shouldn't be shutting the few valves of relief. ... We should be opening that spigot a little wider not shutting it down."

Hey, guys, would you do me — and the millions of other unemployed Americans — a favor?

When you get finished playing your word games and pointing your fingers, would you authorize that extension before you take your vacation?

We've got bills to pay.

The Dead and the Dying

The last couple of days have presented us with ample reminders that those who are not already dead are busy dying.

The most obvious example of the former comes to us from my neck of the woods — yesterday's mass shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. The Killeen Daily Herald today provides eyewitness accounts of the carnage that claimed — by current counts — 13 lives.

Granted, Fort Hood is about a two–hour drive from Dallas, but that's like a stroll in the park, by Texas standards.

A resolution appears to be on the verge of passing the House that will honor those who were killed. Hopefully, the death toll will not rise, but 30 other people were injured and all but two had to be hospitalized. The victims who remain hospitalized today are listed in stable condition so there is reason to believe no one else will die, but complications have been known to occur.

Well, if anything good can be said about those 13 deaths, it would be that they were quick. For the long–term jobless in America, a quick demise would be preferable to the slow agony they are experiencing.

And the agony continues. The Labor Department reported today that unemployment has exceeded 10% in America.

Perhaps in anticipation of that development, perhaps in reaction to Tuesday's elections, Congress approved an extension of unemployment benefits that Barack Obama was scheduled to sign into law today.

I have to admit that the timing seems suspect to me. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been losing their benefits in the last several months, while the Democrats have been obsessing over health care reform. Then Democrats lose two governorships — and a couple of days later, the Democrats in Congress approve a benefits extension.

Paul Krugman writes, in the New York Times, that "economic policy is starting to look like [Obama's] Anzio" because he was too cautious in his approach.

This benefit extension may seem like a bold move to some. And, as one of the long–term unemployed, I appreciate these crumbs that Obama and the Democrats in Congress are tossing to us. But I feel that they are treating a symptom when it is a disease that is killing us.

Mixed Signals

The economy grew 3.5% in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported today.

But the unemployed probably won't be able to tell that things are getting better for awhile — perhaps for a long while.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, the unemployment rate is how most people can tell if the economy is improving. And the unemployment numbers have not been improving. Optimists may be anticipating modest improvement when the next jobs report comes out next week, but I suspect that, if there is any positive news on employment next week, it will be temporary — as it has been on a few other occasions this year. Hopes may be raised a little — only to come crashing down a month later. Just in time for Christmas.

Silla Brush and Jared Allen are pretty blunt in an article in The Hill: "With the midterm election one year away, Democrats in particular are wary of crowing too loudly about good economic news when many of their constituents are struggling. Underlying that concern is the brutal reality that the nation's labor market is worsening with more Americans losing jobs. The unemployment rate, now 9.8 percent, is expected to continue rising. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the unemployment rate will average 10 percent throughout 2010 and will not return to pre–recession levels until 2014."

That certainly may be true, but it isn't encouraging.

The unemployed need reassurance that their elected leaders are trying everything that is humanly possible to, if not actually end their suffering, mitigate it as much as possible while an answer is sought. But no such reassurance is coming through.

Well, perhaps those who are recently jobless haven't yet lost their faith, but those who have been unemployed for a long time are a different story. Many feel forgotten, especially with their unemployment benefits being taken from them.

The humane thing for Barack Obama and the Democrats to do would be to extend unemployment benefits. They have the numbers to do it without their Republican colleagues, who probably would complain about the impact on the national debt.

Well, many people, on both sides of the political spectrum, now say that a small percentage of the billions that were spent to keep the banks and big corporations going will ever be repaid. The investment that is made in keeping millions of struggling Americans going until they can get jobs will be repaid — in the form of tax revenue.

If Obama and the Democrats truly are committed to the nation's health, they will extend the economic lifeline to the least of these.

Until they do that — instead of insisting on blaming the Republicans — the signals to the unemployed will continue to be mixed.

The News Isn't Good, It's Just Not as Bad

Look, I'm glad the unemployment rate dropped in July. But let's keep things in perspective, shall we?

As Chris Isidore of CNNMoney.com observes, economists expected more than 300,000 jobs to be lost in July. Actual job losses were a shade under 250,000 — "the fewest job losses since August 2008."

Good news?

Well, for those who look only at the numbers — and not at the human suffering behind the numbers — I suppose it is good news.

But it reminds me of the "good news" I heard a few months ago, when job losses in May were not as bad as they were expected to be.

Many in the administration hailed the news as a sign that unemployment was easing. Then the jobless report for June came out — nearly half a million jobs were lost and the national unemployment rate went up to 9.5%. In a month's time, the employment situation didn't look as rosy anymore.

Today's figures reduced the unemployment rate by a statistically insignificant 0.1%. But, for those who want to latch on to any scrap of good news as a reason to proclaim that happy days are here again, let me remind you that no jobs are being added. Indeed a quarter of a million people, most of whom, presumably, were employed on Independence Day, have joined the ranks of the jobless.

Remember when job losses in five digits was considered alarming? A monthly job loss in six digits is the norm now.

The administration may claim that a certain number of jobs were "saved" by the stimulus package, but I have seen no evidence to back that up. And, as I wrote earlier this week, the president apparently abandoned his campaign pledge to give tax credits to businesses that hired people in the United States in 2009 and 2010 when his much–ballyhooed stimulus package was being hammered out in February.

That promise was articulated in Ohio at a time when the state was still considered to be straddling the electoral fence. Perhaps it was all rhetoric that was merely intended to win votes. But, at the time, Barack Obama sure sounded — as I wrote this week — like job creation was going to be a priority.

He spoke of his great concern that economists were anticipating that the unemployment rate would reach 8% by the end of 2009 and said, "We can't wait until then to start creating new jobs."

But, since winning the election and taking office, Obama apparently has had other priorities.

Well, because job creation has not been one of them, there is a new problem emerging.

By next month, Julianne Pepitone reports for CNNMoney.com, hundreds of thousands of Americans will run out of unemployment benefits.

Even with the extensions that have been granted, "[m]ore than 650,000 Americans will have used up all of their unemployment benefits by September, in what experts say could be the start of a looming crisis," Pepitone writes.

Paradoxically, these people may slip, unnoticed, through the cracks because "they will soon be unaccounted for in government unemployment reports," Pepitone writes.

"The Labor Department doesn't track anyone who has moved beyond 26 weeks of unemployment in its weekly data on continuing claims (the number of people who request benefits after their first week). And, said Stella Cromartie, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency does not currently have plans to begin tracking this population."

The irony is that these people, who are every bit as unemployed as they were when they were terminated in 2008, won't be counted as unemployed by the government, possibly permitting the government to claim that employment actually is improving when, in fact, it is doing no such thing.

"[B]y late summer the government may begin reporting significant declines in continuing filers," Pepitone says. "But it won't be cause for celebration. Instead of indicating that the economy is on the rebound, it could mean that more people are falling off the radar."

As we continue to learn, the government's bean counters can play all kinds of games with numbers.

But what about the games they are playing with lives?

The Ugly Truth

The recession is over — that's the good news, according to Newsweek.

At least, that is what the main headline on Newsweek's article says. But the ugly truth is to be found in the subhead: "Now what we need is a new kind of recovery."

"The Great Recession ... is most likely over," writes Daniel Gross for Newsweek. And he acknowledges that "[c]atastrophe may have been averted. But when economists proclaim a recession over, they're celebrating a technicality: they mean economic output has stopped contracting. ... GDP growth alone can't feed a family, or pay a mortgage. Cursed with a high national debt load and blessed with a dynamic, growing workforce, the U.S. economy needs annual growth of at least 1.5% just to feel like we're standing still."

Gross has more bad news, although I suspect that longtime job seekers have already figured it out.

"[T]he data point that means the most to our psychological well–being — unemployment — is likely to keep climbing. The loss of 6.5 million jobs since December 2007 has spurred the sharpest rise in the unemployment rate since the 1930s."

If you've been unemployed for awhile, you're probably feeling like a punching bag these days. And Erik Eckholm delivers an uppercut in the New York Times, reporting that up to 1.5 million unemployed Americans will run out of unemployment benefits in the coming months, "ending what for some has been a last bulwark against foreclosures and destitution."

Don't blame Eckholm. He is only the messenger.

And I'm not suggesting that anyone blame the president, either. He didn't create the situation.

But make no mistake about it. While Barack Obama is gambling his popularity on a health care reform package — the passage of which seems iffy at best — and sitting down for a beer and a "teachable moment" on race relations with a Harvard professor and a Cambridge, Mass., police officer, unemployed Americans of all races and their families are facing the loss of their meager benefits in spite of the fact that, as Eckholm writes, "unemployment in this recession has proved to be especially tenacious."

For whatever reason, some people can't get it through their bullet–proof heads that things are different than they used to be. Joblessness lasts a lot longer for most people than it used to. There was a time when employers would take a chance on people who sort of fit the bill for what they were looking for. Today, with so many people looking for jobs, employers can look for a candidate who meets their requirements precisely. That's why it is so hard for people to find work in different fields, even after retraining. Few employers seem willing to allow for a learning curve. Most want actual on–the–job experience.

It's a modern–day Catch–22. You can't get a job in a different field without experience, but you can't get experience in this economy.

The focus of this administration should have been jobs — creating new jobs, encouraging employers to give displaced workers a chance, etc. — all along. Now, millions of Americans, including children, will pay the price because it hasn't been the focus. Many will pay the ultimate price.

I'm not doubting Obama's intentions. But you know what they say about the road to hell?

It's paved with good intentions.