July 2, 2009 - Greenville, SC - Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, made the following statement after news that 476,000 jobs were lost nationally in June, bringing the unemployment rate to 9.5% and the total of jobs lost in 2009 to 2.6 million.
“Today’s record job loss shows what a failure the stimulus and bailouts have been. You cannot borrow, spend, and tax your way to prosperity. After six months of forcing through a trillion dollars in wasteful spending, record deficits, and takeovers of our financial and auto industries, unemployment keeps climbing and more Americans are hurting. But now Democrats and the President are trying to rush through even more job killing policies by taking over our energy and health care industries. Americans are suffering in this economy and it’s the worst time to rush through an electricity tax that would cost families $3,000 more a year they can’t afford. And no American wants the same government that is running our economy into the ditch to takeover their health care and ration their access to doctors. After 2.6 million jobs lost this year, I hope President Obama is finally willing to listen to proven solutions that can get our economy moving again.”
The Heritage Foundation has estimated that the Waxman-Markey cap & trade bill that passed the House will destroy jobs “averaging 1,145,000 at any given time from 2012-2035” and will impose an electricity tax that will cost families an “average of $2,979 annually from 2012-2035 for a household of four.”
Earlier this year, Senator DeMint offered a job creation plan that would have created 18 million jobs over 10 years.
June employment numbers:
• Non-farm payroll dropped in June by 467,000 jobs, which is more than last month and higher than expected.
• The number of unemployed persons jumped to 14.7 million, which is the highest level in American history.
• The unemployment rate is now 9.5%, which is highest level since August 1983.
• Since the beginning of the year, we've lost 2.6 million jobs, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 3.6 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 2.3 percentage points. More employment data:
• Non-Farm Employment (June 2009) = 131,692,000
• Non-Farm Employment (December 2008) = 134,333,000
• Unemployed Persons (June 2009) = 14,729,000
• Unemployed Persons (December 2008) = 11,108,000
• Unemployment Rate (June 2009) = 9.5%
• Unemployment Rate (December 2008) = 7.2%
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