Capping off a week of bad economic news, the U.S Department of Labor reported this morning that the economy added a mere 54,000 jobs in May, far lower than expectations, and the unemployment rate inched up to 9.1 percent.
The report also downwardly revised gains from March and April reports by a combined 39,000.
It also showed that manufacturing employment declined by 5,000.
A lot of the political chatter in recent weeks has been about the weak Republican field and the possibility of a Democratic comeback in 2012 due to a backlash against Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare plan, but if the economic news continues to be this bad, it's going to be a tough road for President Obama in 2012.