New employment statistics released by the federal government this morning continue to show anemic job growth, with 64,000 new private sector jobs unable to offset the loss of 159,000 state government and Census jobs.
The figures show the unemployment rate remained at 9.6 percent and 14.8 million Americans remain unemployed.
The numbers track closely with the estimates of independent experts, who predicted this week that the economy would continue to limp along.
These are the last monthly figures the Department of Labor will release before the November midterms. Republicans will surely seize on them to argue that the Democrats’ economic agenda has failed — though most economists, and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office agree that unemployment would be about two percent higher than it is without the stimulus.
Over 600,000 people were added to the ranks of the involuntarily part-time work force.
About 2.5 million people, unemployed for more than a month, have stopped looking for work. That number is up from 2.2 million last month.
All told, this brings the number of people without jobs, or who have too little work, to 17.1 percent. That’s up from an underemployment rate of 16.7 percent last month — the highest figure in over a year.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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