"The unemployment forecasts included in President Barack Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget proposal released today are “stale and out of date,” says Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. Calculated by the president’s economic team back in November, the forecasts project an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent for 2012 and 8.6 percent for 2013. The jobless rate is currently at 8.3 percent after declining for five consecutive months.
The disconnect between the forecasts and the facts on the ground underscore the recent gains the economy has made, as well as just how pessimistic Obama’s economic team was back in November. The economy has since shown the kinds of recovery signals that it’s lacked for most of Obama’s three years in office. Since August, the unemployment rate has fallen, from 9.1 percent to its current 8.3 percent.
If that pace holds, Obama could be looking at a jobless rate approaching 7 percent on Election Day. Given the last three years of dismal growth, that’s a big “if.” Krueger seems to be playing it safe, having stated that he expects unemployment to be somewhere closer to 8 percent in November."
