Biden: February Job Losses ‘May Match or Exceed January’ Statistics
ABC News’ Karen Travers reports: Vice President Joe Biden said today that when the Department of Labor announces Friday the number of jobs lost in February, “it may match or exceed January” statistics. Employers cut 598,000 workers from their payrolls in January, the worst month of job losses since December 1974 (-602K). “I don’t have to tell anyone in this room that these are tough times for working Americans,” Biden said to the AFL-CIO executive council in Miami. Biden’s comments echoed those of Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, who warned on Tuesday, “We’re now thinking the first quarter is gonna be pretty lousy.” Romer was citing last week’s second reading of fourth quarter GDP getting revised down more than expected. Speaking to the union today, Biden struck a balance between optimism that the nation’s economy would bounce back and a sober assessment of the long road to recovery. He tried that tricky pivot in the same sentence, in fact: “I’m genuinely optimistic. It’s going to be a rough year. It’s going to be rough until we climb out of this,” he said. Biden said that for the last decade, the middle class was slipping, even as the economy was growing. “For too many years, we’ve fallen into the pattern of failing the basic test of this country. We’ve failed to have a White House that puts families front and center — front and center of our economic policies,” the vice president said. “For too long, the middle class has been dealt out. I’m here to tell you in this administration it is dealt in. It is the first card on the table.” Biden promoted the Middle Class Task Force, which he chairs, and laid down a marker by which to judge the Obama administration. “We will judge the success or failure of our administration at the end of our four years based on whether or not the standard of living of the middle class has increased, or not," he said. "That’s the bottom-line measure." Today, Biden, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz announced that $8.4 billion from the stimulus plan will go to states and local transportation authorities to repair and build new public transportation infrastructure. Together, they stopped by a construction site in Miami, where money from the stimulus bill is being used to build a new transportation center. Biden called the project “the wave of the future,” because the center brings greater efficiency to several modes of urban transportation, improves energy efficiency and reduces pollution. “What’s happening here in Miami, we need to have happen all over the United States of America. And it’s beginning to happen. Resources are being put to work not only creating jobs now, but also investing in the future for long-term, good-paying jobs,” Biden said. “The future that strengthens our transit system makes us much more energy efficient, increases safety, and again, provide long-term jobs that cannot be exported.” — Karen Travers ABC News’ Matt Jaffe and Dan Arnall contributed to this report

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Gallup has various tracking polls measuring things like consumer confidence as well as hiring/firing surveys.
Right now they predict unemployment to be a tenth of a pt worse in Feb than it was in Jan.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 5, 2009, 4:53 pm 4:53 pm
How refreshing to have an administration that talks hopefully and realistically at the same time!
The money spent on the projects like the one Biden mentioned should eventually help bolster the economy as well as have long term positive impacts on lessening transportation costs and pollution. It is wonderful to have forward, long-range thinking in our government.
Posted by: Lydia | March 5, 2009, 5:01 pm 5:01 pm
Oh that Joe!
Posted by: Hue Topia | March 5, 2009, 5:05 pm 5:05 pm
jpt quotes Biden:
“I’m genuinely optimistic. It’s going to be a rough year. It’s going to be rough until we climb out of this.”
–> Oh right: “we”, burbles Biden from the tub of butter in which “our” representatives dwell.
“We will judge the success or failure of our administration at the end of our four years based on whether or not the standard of living of the middle class has increased, or not. That’s the bottom line measure.”
Well, duh: the answer to that will be NOT. These useless grinning quislings had better judge themselves on whether the standard of living for the POOR is increasing, because that’s where most of the “middle class” is going.
Everybody KNOWS this is nowhere.
Posted by: Human Intelligence | March 5, 2009, 5:11 pm 5:11 pm
Hey JOE!!!!
Where is my copy of the monthly report you owe me on from the Middle Class Task Force??????
Posted by: Mike_C | March 5, 2009, 5:19 pm 5:19 pm
Biden comments echoed those of Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, who warned on Tuesday that “we’re now thinking the first quarter is gonna be pretty lousy.” Romer was citing last week’s second reading of fourth quarter GDP getting revised down more than expected.
Wow, these people are just incredible. It takes a report from LAST qtr, which comes out 2/3 the way thru THIS qtr for this woman to figure out that THIS qtr is going to be “lousy”!!!!
Lets see….do you think she is ready to tell us that the Detriot Lions might not make LAST years play-offs?
Posted by: Mike_C | March 5, 2009, 5:22 pm 5:22 pm
“We will judge the success or failure of our administration at the end of our four years based on whether or not the standard of living of the middle class has increased, or not. That’s the bottom line measure.”
AHHHHHH, NOW I SEE !!!
The REAL strategy here is to drive down our standard living so damn low, that they can “claim” victory after 4 yrs when it comes up from disaster to mediocre!
Posted by: Mike_C | March 5, 2009, 5:25 pm 5:25 pm
lets just unionize everyone in the US. that will do wonders to keep jobs here in thsi country.
Where is the reporting about the union bosses on their corporate jets and open bar!!!
Sure the hookers are there as well.
Posted by: scott jeffries | March 5, 2009, 5:46 pm 5:46 pm
Good old Joe just wants to bring us all down to the lowest common denominator. The only jobs this administration is interested in creating are government and union jobs. How about making the business environment such that the private sector creates more jobs? Nah, because the Democrats would rather create the ones that are bought and paid for. Hope and Change.
Posted by: Joanne600 | March 5, 2009, 6:07 pm 6:07 pm
“Biden promoted the Middle Class Task Force, which he chairs,”
How DARE the so-called “Democrats”, even NAME something the “Middle Class Task Force”?? Where’s the “Poverty Task Force”?
Pandering to the still-employed while ignoring the already-desperate AND having the so-called “president” urge the marginally-prosperous to buy stock in the middle of a crash is just nuts. Just. nuts.
Let’s hope Feingold (and — go figure — Bayh) prevail over these nitwits, in the short run, and stop the stupid spending bill.
Posted by: Human Intelligence | March 5, 2009, 6:09 pm 6:09 pm
Here’s a question for “Dopey Joe”:
How do construction jobs help teachers,
lawyers, accountants, bus drivers etc
who are out of work?
If you expect them to do construction
work shouldn’t there be Training
Programs for them in those Massive
Spending bills your administration
keeps proposing and passing?
Oh I guess you hadn’t thought of that
“Dopey Joe”!
Posted by: reaganfan | March 5, 2009, 6:10 pm 6:10 pm
Human Intelligence:
Don’t worry Biden and the Democrats
wouldn’t know a middle class person
if he or she were standing in front
of them!
The Dems have been spreading this lie
for years about being for the
middle class when everything they do
is geared to help the welfare class!
Posted by: reaganfan | March 5, 2009, 6:13 pm 6:13 pm
“How do construction jobs help teachers,
lawyers, accountants, bus drivers etc
who are out of work?”
They keep a lot of mostly-white guys who used to play football — the kind of people who BUILT all those mega-houses nobody could afford, the kind of person Biden would be if he hadn’t fallen into politics — in boy-toy bucks, and that’s what counts, to a government that’s got no more brains than to form a Task Force based on “class”.
Posted by: Human Intelligence | March 5, 2009, 6:18 pm 6:18 pm
“The Dems have been spreading this lie
for years about being for the
middle class when everything they do
is geared to help the welfare class!”
Horse-puckey, the “Dems” are always courting the rich, except when they need to get somebody elected over a “Republican”.
Don’t look now, but Bill Clinton “reformed” welfare out of existence, which effectively orphaned a lot of children who’d have been better off with a parent or two, in order to produce and fund another bazillion “training” non-profits, each with highly-paid executive officers, purporting to teach the utterly impoverished how to act and look “middle class” without an income, in order to “compete” in the “job market”.
Posted by: Human Intelligence | March 5, 2009, 6:25 pm 6:25 pm
Wasn’t it Ms. Romer who was all happy-talk, just the other day? Can’t wait for these gutless geese to spin the warning that the FDIC is about to go belly up … which is going to make a lot MORE banks fail.
Posted by: Human Intelligence | March 5, 2009, 6:28 pm 6:28 pm
Did they let goofy Biden out of the attic again?
Posted by: OxyCon | March 5, 2009, 6:31 pm 6:31 pm
“How do construction jobs help teachers,
lawyers, accountants, bus drivers etc
who are out of work?”
****************************************
Hmmm……… It wouldn’t do any good to tell you.
Posted by: Thinking | March 5, 2009, 6:35 pm 6:35 pm
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES:
There are 17 jobs available working under Treasury Secretary Geithner that are unfulfilled. He is desperate to find somebody to fill these positions before the economy tanks.
If you have any experience at anything, have paid all your taxes on time, and have passed Accounting 101, please apply now. You could become famous as part of the administration that saved the world from disaster. Must be 21 and drug free but exceptions can be made.
Posted by: Sigmonde | March 5, 2009, 7:20 pm 7:20 pm
The Obama campaign was excellent at lowering expectations. We’ll see how the Obama White House fares…
Posted by: matt | March 5, 2009, 7:40 pm 7:40 pm
Hey, Joe, quit telling us about the past and do something about the now and future.
Every day you have been Vice President the economy has gotten worse and America is worse off.
The Obama mantra of using the crutch of whining about past Presidents as if it gives them the excuse to bungle things up worse than the are and they can blame everyone else is tiring.
Posted by: Will Stanton | March 5, 2009, 7:44 pm 7:44 pm
“The Obama mantra of using the crutch of whining about past Presidents … ”
And even … hahaha … about truly charismatic, if somewhat strange, talk-radio guys. It’s ludicrous and embarrassing, right up there with Pelosi’s pearls.
Posted by: Human Intelligence | March 5, 2009, 7:55 pm 7:55 pm
Speaking from his super secret meeting at the Fountainblue in Miami I suppose — I wonder if he told the unions they will get their half trillion investment in Obama back …
New age of openness. Now if Cheney had met with oil company execs, that would be different … Right Jake?
Posted by: bill-tb | March 5, 2009, 8:21 pm 8:21 pm
Unemployment is a trailing indicator of the economy. The Dow and S&P indexes are leading indicators, that is, they reflect what very wise people believe the state of the economy will be six to twelve months in the future based on current day public policy and economic indicators like GDP.
Given that the markets continue to freefall every time Obama announces a new policy based on unchecked spending you can expect unemployment to rise steadily al least for the next year and more likely for the next two years.
Obama could stop the slide tomorrow if he proposed a solution involving buying all toxic assets but that will never happen. In the end they will pour more money into failing institutions than they would have spent buying all the toxic assets for ten cents on the dollar.
Posted by: Woody | March 5, 2009, 8:41 pm 8:41 pm
Thanks for reporting this in a straight-forward manner. If one were to only listen to Rupert Murdoch, one would think that the AFL-CIO meeting was some kind of super-secret conclave, and that there weren’t dozens of reporters in there.
Posted by: Flash Override | March 5, 2009, 10:21 pm 10:21 pm
We should just listen to the very wise people on Wall Street. They know what they’re talking about. Who could have known that their entire enterprise was riddled with cronyism and corruption, and that their analysis of all these great corporations was totally wrong? Believe me, I know one thing: always listen to Wall Street, they know what they’re doing.
Posted by: Mr. Block | March 5, 2009, 10:29 pm 10:29 pm
Has the tail got hold of the dog?
“Much continues to brew there with little positive result and no positive prospects (aside for gold-digging by exploiters of the continuing spigot of USA tax-payer funds, that is),” quoted from a European blog on the middle east. Exploiting USA tax-payer funds is a common notion in other parts of the world. Huh. How about that.
Posted by: MarkLeavenworth | March 5, 2009, 10:34 pm 10:34 pm
I wanna be able to go to the doctors
that Nancy, Joe and Michelle will get
to see at any time they deem necessary.
The reverse will do: THEY will have
to be cared for by the same doctor
they will assign for me. Gosh, they
are so important that I hope the
doctor will have been trained in the
USA. Under Obama’s plan, very few
will be.
Posted by: Trajan | March 5, 2009, 10:59 pm 10:59 pm
Hmmmm! Biden said what??? He doesn’t know what he is doing. He is the worse VP in this history. I missed former VP Cheney. Cheney is better than Biden.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 6, 2009, 4:58 am 4:58 am
Biden was heard to say at the AFL-CIO Union Mtg something akin to the following:
“You need to dance with the guy that brung (sic) you”
“It is time to start dancing” “You want unions, you got unions”
Paying off the unions with kickbacks and earmarks, promising them to take away the concept of private ballots known as “card check” thereby allowing instant unionization by intimidation, is really far more important to Biden than this job thing.
Yeah, Yeah ,Yeah, they can deal with that after they secure their power and payback all the special interests.
Posted by: BO Needs to Go | March 6, 2009, 9:47 am 9:47 am
Miami should pay for their own roads, they don’t even have state income tax there. Ask them where that money went.
Posted by: tirekicker | March 6, 2009, 11:14 am 11:14 am
“For too long, the middle class has been dealt out. I’m here to tell you in this administration it is dealt in. It is the first card on the table.”
As long as Obama says it, it will true in the monds of Obama supporters no matter how false it is. Obamatons are absolutely incapable of independent thought. All this spending is not for the middle class, it’s for welfare state enhancement. It is for those who contribute nothing. It’s for those who were greedy and irresponsible.
This twit knows not the first thing about jobs as he’s never had to meet a payroll. I have paid all of my FICA and half of my employess’ FICA and now I have to pay everyone else’s FICA and contribute to THEIR retirement as my own retirement money vanishes.
Obama is a moron.
Posted by: drjohn | March 6, 2009, 11:36 am 11:36 am
I just don’t know what all of you are complaining about, you paid your dues the Union spends them as they see fit, they have to spend the dues somewhere. (Just not on you) They have been doing the same thing every year having lavish parties and retreats and no one ever complained.
Apparently you as workers are only good for the dues.
Posted by: Lizzie | March 6, 2009, 1:09 pm 1:09 pm