Well, we can't say it's unexpected, but that's no comfort to the thousands and thousands of workers who join that other victims of the Bush/McCain economy. September's unemployment rate stayed at 6.1%, but that translates into 159,000 more lost jobs.
From MSNBC:
"Employers slashed payrolls by 159,000 in September, the most in more than five years, a worrisome sign that the economy is hurtling toward a deep recession.
The Labor Department’s fresh snapshot, released Friday, also showed that the nation’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.1 percent as hundreds of thousands of people streamed out of the work force for any number of reasons.
The reduction in payrolls was much sharper than the 100,000 cuts economists were forecasting."
I recall how one of the mantras from four years ago was that Bush's job creation performance was miserable compared to Clinton's. Well, this makes 9 months in a row of job losses directly attributable to the Bush/McCain economy.
Here's an historical perspective on presidential performance when it comes to job creation:
Kennedy-Johnson 3.27%
Nixon-Ford 4.93%
Carter 3.06%
Reagan 2.06%
Bush I 0.60%
Clinton 2.38%
And the Bush/McCain record? 0.59%
Our country simply can't afford one more year of this, much less four or eight!