Perilous Times
Unemployment is now the 'new normal' in US
Barack Obama has warned of his concern about very high unemployment
being "a new normal" in the United States.
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Published: 6:34PM GMT 08 Nov 2010
Barack Obama warns of unemployment being 'new normal' in US
Mr Obama is still smarting from heavy losses in the midterm elections
Photo: AP
In an interview with "60 Minutes" on CBS News, his first since the
Democratic drubbing in last Tuesday's mid-terms elections, Mr Obama
said that he sometimes gets "discouraged" about the poor economy but
realised that it was not entirely his fault.
"There are times when I thought that the economy would have gotten
better by now," he said. "You know, one of the things I think you
understand as president is you're held responsible for everything, but
you don't always have control of everything, right?"
He insisted he was not worried about another depression or recession
but the unemployment rate, stuck at just below 10 per cent, was a major
concern.
"What is a danger is that we stay stuck in a new normal where
unemployment rates stay high, people who have jobs see their incomes go
up, businesses make big profits, but they've learned to do more with
less, and so they don't hire," he said.
"And as a consequence, we keep on seeing growth that is just too slow
to bring back the eight million jobs that were lost. That is a danger.
So that's something that I spend a lot of time thinking about."
Mr Obama resisted expressing regrets about any policy decisions he had
made but spoke with the same tone of contrition he exhibited in his
White House press conference last Wednesday. He suggested his focus on
good policy had carried a political price.
"We were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that
we stopped paying attention to the fact that, yeah, leadership isn't
just legislation, that it's a matter of persuading people and giving
them confidence and bringing them together, and setting a tone.
"We haven't always been successful at that, and I take personal
responsibility for that. And it's something that I have to examine
carefully as I go forward."
Mr Obama also said that he did not believe the elections had been a
referendum on his presidency. "I think first and foremost, it was a
referendum on the economy. And the party in power was held responsible
for an economy that is still underperforming and where a lot of folks
are still hurting."