Research

Today, Obama will be in Buffalo to tout his work on the economy, but he may want to be careful about claiming victory.  The Hill reports today that Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi predicts unemployment will climb above 10 percent during the next few months, indicating just how fragile the economy is:

The increase in unemployment is a sign of a stronger job market, but it is also a sign of how weak the job market still is and vulnerable the recovery is to anything that might go wrong.

When the April job numbers came out last Friday, Zandi cautioned that it’s not quite time to break out the champagne:

The point is it’s not good enough because we need to see consistent job growth of well over 150k per month, month in and month out, not just one month, not just two, but consistent to get the unemployment rate to head south in a meaningful way. … All I’m saying is we're moving in the right direction. Bob is right, all the indicators point in the right way but we're not off and running yet.  With a 10 percent unemployment rate we're not off and running.

After signing into law a job-killing health care bill and now pushing a financial regulation bill and cap and trade bill that will kill more jobs, Obama is certainly not working to protect our economy from “anything that might go wrong.”