Friday is the third anniversary of President Obama’s signing of the $800 billion stimulus package into law. By the administration’s own metric, the massive spending bill was not successful, failing to hold the unemployment rate below 8 percent, as predicted.
A new report from the Congressional Budget Office confirms this failure, projecting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent for several years.
"The rate of unemployment in the United States has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, making the past three years the longest stretch of high unemployment in this country since the Great Depression," the report reads. "Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the unemployment rate will remain above 8 percent until 2014."
The official unemployment rate is currently 8.3 percent. According to the CBO report, the real unemployment rate -- including individuals who are underemployed or have stopped looking for a job – is 15 percent.