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Obama Job Losses Hit 7 Of 10 Battleground States
Seven out of the 10 presidential toss-up states have lost jobs since President Obama took office, and the unemployment rate is higher today in six of those states than in January 2009, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What's more, six of those states listed as toss-ups by Real Clear Politics have seen their labor force shrink since January 2009, which masks the true size of their unemployment problem.

The state data underscore the fact that, despite the recent drop in the national unemployment rate to 7.8%, the nation's jobs picture remains bleak, particularly in states that Obama and Mitt Romney are fighting over.

The BLS report notes that in September, 41 states saw unemployment drop compared with August, and 35 states gained payroll jobs.
So in six states, the unemployed retired, moved, or took up keeping house because there were no jobs to be found. A useful datum.
But the data also show that, since Obama took office, fully 32 states have seen a net decline in the number of jobs, and the unemployment rate is still higher in 27 states than it was in January 2009.

In addition, 24 states saw their labor force shrink since Obama took office. That can make the unemployment rate appear lower in those states, since people who've left the labor force don't count as unemployed.

And several swing states have seen significant declines in their labor force under Obama, which means their employment picture is far worse than advertised.

Ohio's official unemployment rate for example, is 7%, down from 8.6% when Obama took office. But that decline was entirely due to 193,362 people dropping out of the labor force under Obama -- either they quit looking or moved to another state. Had that drop not occurred, Ohio's unemployment rate would be a staggering 10%.

Michigan has suffered the same fate. Its official unemployment rate is down to 9.3% from 11.3% when Obama took office. But the state's jobless rate would be 13.8% if the state's labor force hadn't shrunk by almost a quarter million since January 2009.

And the unemployment rate in Iowa -- which officially dropped from 6.1% to 5.2% -- would be 8.4% now were it not for the fact that the state lost 55,955 workers.

Other big labor force losers under Obama were Arizona (down 127,657), New York (down 115,447), Indiana (down 110,205), Missouri (down 107,091), and Wisconsin (down 57,147).

The biggest gainer by far was Texas, which saw its labor force explode by almost 804,000, even as its unemployment rate remained below 7%.
Posted by: Au Auric 2012-10-20
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=354228