Long Term Jobless Diss Obama's Jobs Plan

As President Obama travels today to North Carolina to deliver another speech on job-creation, criticism of his jobs plan is coming from an surprising quarter--the unemployed themselves.

The longest of the long-term unemployed, so-called "99ers" whose benefits have run out, say the president's plan ignores their needs. They say that while it gives employers an $8 billion incentive to hire people out of work, it leaves them free to discriminate against 99ers and to hire instead the more recently unemployed.

The president's speech comes amidst increasing public skepticism of his $447 billion plan. A Bloomberg poll released earlier today finds that 51 percent of Americans don't think the plan will help lower unemployment. Only 36 percent approve of his efforts to create jobs, and the president's approval rating stands at the lowest of his presidency—45 percent.