And there were a lot to recover-4.2 million in all. Consider this while you hear Mitt Romney's opportunistic claims to be concerned about the unemployed.
"As of April, there are now more private sector jobs in the United States than there were in January 2009, when President Obama took office. You read that right. We have now replaced all of the private sector jobs lost while Obama has been president. And that was no mean feat, given that over the course of 2009, the private sector shed about 4.2 million jobs."
"Unfortunately, the news is not nearly so good when it comes to the public sector, where there are currently 607,000 fewer people working than there were when President Obama took office."
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/04/478368/478368/
Now no question yesterday's numbers were disappointing-115,000 total jobs for April. But the problem is the the public sector job cuts at the state and local level. What accounts for the recovery in the US while Europe-including Britain-is in a double dip?
Austerity. We haven't had major austerity at the Federal level, thanks to President Obama, who has been our last line of defense. For those who carp on the idea that he's in bed with Pete Peterson and desires austerity-the "Grand Bargain", etc-please read David Corn's new book that showed that Laurence O'Donnell absolutely did get it right during the debt ceiling stalemate-yes the President plays a pretty good game of eleven dimensional chess.
However, we have had austerity lite in the US in the form of state level government cutbacks. What was-is-needed is some stimulus for strapped state governments.
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