Bill Bennett: “last week we had numbers that came out with respect to the economy. We also had testimony from the chairman of the…”

“last week we had numbers that came out with respect to the economy. We also had testimony from the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board with respect to the economy. And as recently as yesterday we had some stunning numbers that came out telling us what is happening in the economy. I would like to review those very quickly for the Members of the Senate. This chart demonstrates that the economy remains strong. Last week's number said that economic growth in the first quarter was 4.8 percent. As you can see on the chart, that is the highest number since we had the spike in 2003. Each one of these dark figures represent a quarter and demonstrates that the economy has now grown ever since the end of the recession in 2001. We had weak growth for the first little while and then the economy has been growing very strongly ever since. This a very strong and vibrant economy, as Chairman Bernanke made clear in his testimony to the Joint Economic Committee. People want to talk about jobs. Let us look at the unemployment rate. If you will notice, the shaded areas in the chart represent the last three recessions. In the recession of the 1980s, unemployment got into double digits--10.8 percent is where it spiked. In the recession that occurred in the early 1990s, unemployment got to 7.8 percent--spiked at that point. In the recession we just had, unemployment spiked at 6.3 percent, a relatively low level, but it has been zinging ever since, and it is now at 4.7 percent.…”