TAXING THEIR WAY TO PROSPERITY

Germany's Jobless Rate Up to 10.4 Percent (WashingtonPost.com, 8/6/2003)

BERLIN –– Germany's jobless rate rose to 10.4 percent in July with 94,500 more people out of work than in the previous month amid stagnation in Europe's largest economy, according to government figures released Wednesday.

The unadjusted unemployment rate increased from 10.2 percent in June, with a total of 4.352 million people out of work, the Federal Labor Office said. Some 305,000 more Germans were without a job than in July last year, it added.

The German economy is in its third year of stagnation. It contracted slightly in the first quarter of this year following 0.2 percent growth last year and 0.6 percent expansion in 2001.

"While early economic indicators point to a forthcoming economic upswing, current indicators such as orders and industrial production show no turnaround yet," the labor office said in its statement. "Consequently, the labor market also has shown no fundamental improvement."

July's unemployment figures again showed the gap between western Germany and the struggling ex-communist east. While the jobless rate was 8.3 percent in the west, it was more than twice as high in the east, at 18.5 percent.

Maybe time to call Schroeder's "tax your way out of it" experiment to a halt? Posted by John Resnick at August 6, 2003 6:22 PM