That wily Nancy Pelosi and her unemployment charts

You may have seen this chart from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, which makes the current job losses look unprecedentedly awful:

But as Jim Manzi notes, Pelosi’s chart is based on the number of jobs lost as opposed to per capita unemployment or some other measure that accounts for the increase in the U.S. workforce. Here’s the same data expressed as unemployment rate:

Using that chart the current recession – bad as it admittedly is – is within historical norms, which undercut claims that we need this unprecedented boondoggle of a so-called stimulus package.

The porkulus bill creates $2,600 of debt for every man, woman, and child in the United States. That’s on top of a U.S. 10 trillion dollar debt, plus a projected additional 1 trillion dollar deficit projected for 2009. Call your Congressmen and tell them what you don’t want to burden your family and future generations with this debt.

Previously

• CBO: Stimulus will hurt long-term GDP
• WSJ: Only 12% of stimulus bill is stimulus
• Tax cuts may work better than spending to stimulate the economy