Nichols adds together the 9.2% official unemployment rate plus the underemployment rate and the "I've given up looking for work" rate and comes up with 16% who are hurting directly.
I add to Nichols' sixteen percent all the families who have an unemployed brother's or sister's family camped out in the living room, or a laid off father or mother who may never again find work because employers think they're too old, or a child about to finish school with zero job prospects.
In other words, there are plenty of folks worried about the economy. Nichols concludes thusly:
No president since Franklin Roosevelt has won reelection when the unemployment rate was over 7 percent. And Roosevelt won because he ran as a candidate who was fully willing to use the power of the federal government to create jobs —and programs like Social Security.Nichols doesn't see Obama using the power of the federal government to create jobs, even if a Republican House of Representatives would let him. He guesses many 2008 Obama voters will stay home in 2012, I guess he's correct.
