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ABC assigned the unemployment story to White House correspondent Jake Tapper, who highlighted Barack Obama's talking point that employers generated 1.1m new jobs in 2010: "Each quarter was stronger than the previous quarter, which means that the pace of hiring is beginning to pick up," the President boasted. This optimism was undercut by Chairman Benjamin Bernanke of the Federal Reserve Board. He predicted that full employment would not be achieved for another four or five years.
ABC's Tapper gave us the nickname for the long-term unemployed who are so discouraged that they have dropped out of the workforce altogether: 99ers, for those ineligible to collect jobless benefits after the 99th week on the dole. On CBS' Anthony Mason (no link) showed us his chart: for every 100 people who were unemployed in November, 62 were still out of work a month later; 20 had dropped out of the labor force entirely; and 18 had found a job. NBC had Kevin Tibbles file from Chicago: "December job creation simply did not materialize at the predicted pace."
CBS' Mason then followed up with a bright spot in the economy: Austin is ranked by the Brookings Institute as the city with the strongest expansion out of the recession. "It's a great town!" Mason took a trip to Texas and ticked off its state university, its inexpensive housing, the lack of state income taxes, and cultural vibrancy as key selling points. Curiously, Mason did not even let the word pass his lips that makes UTexas immune from budget cuts and incomes immune from taxation.
Oil.
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