Economic Forecast

A bad morning. This, from The Washington Post:

Job growth came to nearly to a halt in June, the federal government said Friday in surprisingly grim new data — an alarming challenge to predictions that the economy would bounce back later this year.

Employers added 18,000 jobs last month, a trivial number in a country with 150 million workers, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent from 9.1 percent. It was a far worse result than expected--economists had forecast 105,000 new jobs.

The jobs report was exceptionally weak even beyond those headline numbers. Job growth in April and May was revised downward by a combined 44,000 positions. Temporary employers, which tend to be a leading indicator of future activity in the job market, cut 12,000 jobs. And some 272,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force, perhaps giving up looking for work out of frustration; the unemployment rate would have risen even higher had they stayed in.

A broader measure of unemployment that includes those who have given up looking out of frustration and those with part time work who want a full-time job rose to 16.2 percent, from 15.8 percent.

I hope I am wrong, but I shudder to think what the numbers will look like a month from now, when July 1st State, County and municipal government layoffs are factored in.  July 1st, the start of new fiscal years all around the country, remember? 

I can already hear the Republican blah-blah now, about how government doesn't create jobs....