Jobs

Unemployment Would Be 10.9% If So Many Hadn’t Stopped Trying To Find A Job:  Unemployment would be substantially higher if so many Americans had not become discouraged and stopped looking for work in the past three years.  As Louis Woodhill writes today, “December marked the 30th month of Obama's economic recovery.  During this time, the reported unemployment rate fell from 9.5% to 8.5%.  However, this ‘improvement’ was entirely an artifact of workers giving up and dropping out of the labor force.  In fact, if labor force participation had remained constant at the 65.7% level that obtained at the end of the recession (June 2009), December's unemployment rate would have been reported at 10.9%.”

Spending

Debt Grows By $1.2 Trillion In 2011:  According to the Department of Treasury, the total national debt grew by $1.22 trillion between January 1 and December 31 in 2011.  During 2011, the national debt grew by $3.3 billion per day, or about $30 every day for each household in the U.S.

Medicare

 Entitlement Crowd Out:  In a recent WebMemo, Heritage Foundation researchers explain ”driven by entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—total federal spending will explode from 24 percent of GDP in 2011 to nearly 35 percent by 2035 while the debt held by the public is projected to reach a stagger­ing 185 percent of GDP.  By mid-century, these three programs alone would devour total tax revenues, crowding out other vital priorities such as national defense.”