WASHINGTON, DC: The White House unveiled a new strategy to lower the nation’s unemployment rate, currently standing at 10 percent.
In his weekly radio address Saturday, the President announced that he will use remaining funds from the failed Stimulus bill to take advantage of little known variable in the unemployment rate factor: “discouraged workers.”
Pointing out that “discouraged” workers are excluded from the unemployment calculation, the President explained that the government will encourage the unemployed to simply give up hopes for finding work.
“Discouraged workers are those who’ve essentially given up trying to find a job,” the President explained from the Oval Office. “These people are able-bodied and working age, but they have lost hope of finding a job.”
“Discourage workers can do more to help our economic statistics than Green Jobs,” Obama explained. “For every 100,000 unemployed workers who simply give up,” he said, “the unemployment rate drops about one-tenth of one percent.”
“In December, for example, over six hundred thousands patriotic Americans lost hope of ever finding a job. Without their sacrifice, our unemployment rate would stand at 10.4—the highest rate since the Great Depression.”
In the next two weeks, the Labor Department will send millions of brochures entitled “Yes You Can Give Up” to homeless shelters and those receiving unemployment benefits.
[satire]