New Jobless Claims Rise to 462,000

New applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 462,000, and unemployment is at 9.6 percent.

Employers are reluctant to hire because of the increased threat of being sued under the Obama administration, and massive potential future tax and regulatory burdens due to its policies. In September, 95,000 jobs disappeared due in part to Obama administration policies.

The Obama administration claimed if we passed the stimulus package, unemployment wouldn’t go above 8 percent. But the stimulus ended up destroying jobs in certain sectors, while costing more than its projected $787 billion price tag. It also expanded welfare and repealed key provisions of the 1996 welfare reform law.

Recent EPA rules aimed at global warming will wipe out at least 800,000 jobs, with many additional job-killing regulations expected soon. Employers are fearful about those rules and the enormous cost of proposed cap-and-trade global warming legislation (which would impose huge burdens on many industries, cutting their output and thus causing major losses of steel, paper, aluminum, chemical, and cement manufacturing jobs).