Job loss dominates political landscape

On Friday the Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate had climbed to 10.2%, its highest rate since April 1983.

Nearly 16 million people cannot find work.

The underemployment rate which includes discouraged workers who have given up looking for jobs and those working part-time because they cannot find full time employment hit 17.5%

Economic insecurity and jobs have become the the nation's dominant political issue.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow writes:

This is now Obama’s crisis, and it carries political consequences. During Tuesday’s gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, nearly 9 in 10 voters said that they were worried about the direction of the nation’s economy in the next year. And the majority of those who held that view voted for the Republican candidates. This could portend a flashback to 1994.

It isn’t President Obama’s fault that he inherited this mess, but it is his to fix, and he must make haste. To paraphrase his Toledo prelection: you need to do it not five years from now, not next year, you need to do it right now. J-O-B-S.