The Congressional Budget Office released it's annual summer update of the budget and economic outlook on Wednesday and according to the CBO's projection, the national unemployment rate "will remain above 8 percent until 2014.":
Unemployment rate:
With modest economic growth anticipated for the next few years, CBO expects employment to expand slowly. The unemployment rate is projected to fall to 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of this year and to 8.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 and then to remain above 8 percent until 2014.
The current national unemployment rate is 9.1 percent. In January of 2009, President Barack Obama said the unemployment rate would drop to 8 percent if the $787 billion stimulus plan was passed. Today's CBO numbers is yet another hit on that pledge. Is it no wonder Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, told the Hill last summer that it was "dumb" of Mr. Obama to make such a prediction about the nation's unemployment?