August 3, 2012 11:46AM 

# Jobless Rate Climbs to 8.3 Percent, Creating More Anxiety for Obama and the Left 

By [Daniel J. Mitchell](https://www.cato.org/people/daniel-mitchell) 

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Can we finally all agree that [Keynesian economics is a flop](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/keynesian-economics-is-wrong/)? The politicians in Washington flushed about $800 billion down the toilet and we got nothing in exchange except for [anemic growth and lots of people out of work](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/one-year-later-another-look-at-obamanomics-vs-reaganomics/).

Indeed, we’re getting to the point where the [monthly employment reports from the Labor Department](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) must be akin to Chinese water torture for the Obama administration. Even when the unemployment rate falls, it gives critics an opportunity to [recycle the chart below](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/another-month-of-data-re-confirms-obamas-horrible-record-on-jobs/) showing how bad the economy is doing compared to what the White House said would happen if the so-called stimulus was enacted.

But for the past few months, the joblessness rate has been rising, making the chart look even worse.

![Media Name: obama-unemployment.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/download-remote-images/danieljmitchell.files.wordpress.com/165661391152/obama-unemployment.jpg?itok=KN_P_4FE) 

I never watch TV, so I’m not in a position to know for sure, but I haven’t seen any articles indicating that the Romney campaign is using this data in commercials to criticize Obama. That seems like a missed opportunity. But since it’s not clear to me that Romney would actually do anything different than Obama (check out [this post](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/a-great-political-cartoon-after-a-bit-of-editing/) if that seems like an odd assertion), I don’t focus on the political implications.

Instead, I’m hoping the American people will learn an important long-run lesson: If you want more growth and prosperity, the recipe is [smaller government and free markets](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/whats-the-recipe-for-growth-and-prosperity/). In other words, our economic policy should be more like [Hong Kong and Singapore](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/american-politicians-should-learn-some-policy-lessons-from-hong-kong-and-singapore/), but the Obama administration has been making us [more like France](http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/the-crazy-french-double-down-on-obamanomics/).

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[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) 

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