Although the private sector added 50,000 in November, lower than expected, it was insufficient to prevent the jobless rate from climbing to 9.8 percent, the U.S. Labor Department said.
The Obama Administration said that while the overall trend of economic data over the past two months has been encouraging, the numbers underscore the “importance of extending expiring tax cuts for the middle class and unemployment insurance for those Americans who have lost their jobs.”
“Failure to do (extend the tax cuts for the middle class and jobless benefits) this would jeopardize hundreds of thousands of additional jobs, and leave millions of Americans, who are out of work through no fault of their own”, Austan Goolsbee, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers said.
Estimates of private sector job growth for September and October were 112,000 and 160,000, respectively. Since last December, the economy has added 1.2 million private sector jobs. So far this quarter, including today’s revisions, private sector employers have added an average of 105,000 jobs per month.
The Labor Department said that overall payroll employment rose by 39,000 in November. The sectors with the largest payroll employment growth were education and health services (+30,000) and temporary help services (+39,500). Retail trade loss 28,100 jobs, manufacturing, 13,000, state and local government jobs declines by 13,000, and construction loss, 5,000 jobs.
Even as the U.S. economy struggles to generate broad-based jobs growth for the 15 million people out of work, the Senate voted down on Saturday, the extension of the Bush tax cuts which expire at the end of 2010, in two separate votes. The first bill would have extended the Bush tax cuts for everyone making less than $250,000 per year. This was defeated by 53-36, failing to get the 60 votes needed. Five democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Jim Webb (D-VA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who believe that taxes should not be raised on anyone, joined all the Republicans in voting no.
The second bill would have extended the tax cuts to everyone making less than $1 million, but that too was defeated, 53-37.
Following the defeat of the both votes, Sen. Chuck Schummer (D-New York) said that they showed the American people that the Republicans were prepared to hold hostage middle class tax cuts, so the the wealthy too, could also obtain them.
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts only for the middle class.
