The Economist on Democratic Woes and Unemployment

From the Economist ... emphasis mine

The Democrats may not merely lose the House in November, but the Senate too. How did it go so wrong?

Jul 22nd 2010

....

Its Democratic masters say that the 111th Congress has been bold, busy
and effective. Since starting work in the middle of an economic crisis
it has authorised $1 trillion or so of stimulus spending, steered GM and
Chrysler out of bankruptcy, pushed through health-care reform and
overhauled financial regulation
....

So what have the Democrats done to deserve humiliation in November?
.....
the pugnacious Paul Krugman, fortified by his Nobel prize for economics, has been arguing in the New York Times that Mr Obama’s original sin was his failure to enact a stimulus that matched the scale of the crisis he inherited.
....
To put the blame entirely on the economy may seem crudely
deterministic. But consider the findings of a recent Pew survey on how
this recession has changed America 30 months after it started. More than
half of all workers have experienced a spell of unemployment, taken a
cut in pay or hours or been forced to go part-time. The typical
unemployed worker has been jobless for nearly six months. Collapsing
share and house prices have destroyed a fifth of the wealth of the
average household. Nearly six in ten Americans have cancelled or cut
back on holidays. About a fifth say their mortgages are underwater. One
in four of those between 18 and 29 have moved back in with parents.
Fewer than half of all adults expect their children to have a higher
standard of living than theirs, and more than a quarter say it will be
lower.

Another way to put this is that for many Americans the great
recession has been the sharpest trauma since the second world war,
wiping out jobs, wealth and hope itself. That is why fewer than half now
think that Mr Obama is doing a good job. He and his party will need to
present an astonishingly good argument to talk the electorate out of
doing what will come naturally in a mid-term: casting a protest vote
against the party in power. They have not yet provided one that is
sufficiently persuasive.

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