Back in June, I pointed to reportage from Reuters sounding the alarm about how unemployment had been increasing for months:

Reuters reports that the unemployment rate rose in May for the fifth straight month — and this increase is the biggest one-month increase in 22 years…

Another Reuters story on the subject quotes various big financial poobahs describing the unemployment situation as “horrible”, “significant” and “shocking”.

So what’s changed since then? Things have gotten worse, that’s what. Today Reuters reports that unemployment has continued going up:

The U.S. unemployment rate hit its highest level in four years during July as employers cut non-farm jobs for a seventh straight month, though less severely than predicted, a Labor Department report on Friday showed.

The jobless rate climbed to 5.7 percent from 5.5 percent in June as 51,000 jobs were eliminated in July, bringing losses for the year to 463,000. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected 75,000 jobs would be cut last month but had forecast the unemployment rate would rise only to 5.6 percent.

Brian Gendreau, an investment strategist with ING Investment Management Americas in New York, described the monthly job losses as “painful” and consistent with a weak economy.

We need a President who can get this economy moving again. We need Barack Obama.

UPDATE (11AM): Why do we need Barack Obama? Because he’s paying attention to this stuff. Even as I was writing this post, he was rolling out a new Emergency Economic Plan (PDF) to reinvigorate the economy. The announcement:

Today, we learned that 51,000 jobs were lost last month, the seventh straight month of job loss - now totaling 463,00 jobs lost since the beginning of this year. I’ve already called for an economic stimulus package on two different occasions this year, and much of what I’ve proposed has passed in Congress. These efforts have made some difference. But with job losses mounting, prices rising, increased turbulence in our financial system, and a growing credit crunch, we need to do more.

That’s why today I’m announcing a two-part emergency plan to help struggling families make ends meet and get our economy back on track. The first part of my plan is a $1,000 emergency energy rebate that could go out to families as soon as this fall. This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next 4 months. Or, if you live in a state where it gets very cold in the winter, it will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills or even to pay down debt. As we provide relief, we must also be mindful of the swelling budget deficit. That is why I am proposing that we pay for this rebate by taxing the windfall profits of oil companies so we can use some of their record profits to help families pay record prices.

The second part of my plan is a $50 billion stimulus to help jump-start job creation and help local communities that are struggling due to our economic downturn. Half of this stimulus will go to state governments that are facing big budget shortfalls. The other half of this stimulus will be used to invest in our national infrastructure, replenish the Highway Trust Fund, rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges, and repair our crumbling schools.

Today’s jobs report is an urgent reminder that we cannot afford four more years of the failed Bush economic policies, and that is what Senator McCain is offering. He’s proposing to cut the gasoline tax paid by the oil companies and trust that they will pass on the savings in the form of lower prices at the pump. And he’s also proposing tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans in the hopes that a little bit of it will trickle down to ordinary Americans. I do not believe that giving $4 billion in new tax cuts to oil companies will create any jobs or save you any money. I believe that if we want relief for families, we should give relief to families, not oil companies. If we want to create jobs, we should do more to make work pay for ordinary Americans, not boost the profits of oil companies. It’s time to restore fairness and balance to our economy and we can start by passing the emergency economic plan that I’m proposing today.

That’s a pretty concrete set of proposals there. Meanwhile, what did John McCain roll out in response to the unemployment report? A two-paragraph press release without a single specific proposal:

Across this country, Americans are hurting and today’s job numbers are just the latest reminder of the economic challenges we face. We must enact a Jobs for America plan that supports job creation and helps small businesses, which even in these tough economic times are creating jobs.

Unlike Senator Obama, I do not believe that raising taxes is the answer to our economic problems. There is no surer way to force jobs overseas than to raise taxes on businesses. The American people cannot afford economic policies that will take us backward.

Judge for yourself which candidate takes getting America working again more seriously.