The White House spins today’s grim August jobs report (which John Steele Gordon details below), calling it “further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression”:
While there is more work that remains to be done, today’s employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. It is critical that we continue the policies that are building an economy that works for the middle class as we dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that began in December 2007. To create more jobs in particularly hard-hit sectors, President Obama continues to support the elements of the American Jobs Act that have not yet passed, including further investment in infrastructure to rebuild our Nation’s ports, roads and highways, and assistance to State and local governments to prevent layoffs and to enable them to rehire hundreds of thousands of teachers and first responders. To build on the progress of the last few years, President Obama has also proposed an extension of middle class tax cuts that would prevent the typical middle class family from facing a $2,200 tax increase next year.
At the AEI blog, James Pethokoukis cites a far less optimistic take from Citigroup:
The unemployment rate dropped to 8.1% from 8.3%, but in this case with declines in both the labor force (-368,000) and the household-survey measure of employment (-119,000). With labor force participation falling back to a new cycle low of 63.5%, the drop in the unemployment rate should not be reported as good news.
Pethokoukis adds:
This was not the employment report either American workers or the Obama campaign were hoping for. A huge miss. It shows the U.S. labor market remains in a deep depression, generating few jobs and little if no income growth.
No amount of spin from the White House or Obama campaign can put a happy face on these numbers. While the unemployment rate dipped from 8.3 percent in July to 8.1 percent, Pethokoukis notes that the unemployment rate would actually be 8.4 percent if workforce participation had remained steady from July. The fact that many unemployed Americans have given up looking for jobs over the past month is obviously a distressing sign, even though it may have made the unemployment rate look modestly better on the surface.
Meanwhile, the Romney campaign jumped on the numbers this morning to contrast them with the positive recovery rhetoric from the Democratic National Convention: “If last night was the party, this morning is the hangover.”
I long for the days of Ross Perot. With reports like this post, Mr. Perot would make a graph to show the public just how bad is the situation. On that graph I envision a plot from the beginning of the recovery (if such a point exists) that shows the unemployment rate from then to now and we include people who are now looking, people who stopped looking, people who are underemployed, and people who are employed part-time but want to be full-time. Such a plot would be grim, but it would show just how many people are suffering due to the failures of this administration. n nIs there such a plot?
Ross Perot was a narcisstic lunatic who gace us Bill Clinton.
Not quite what you asked for, but there’s this:
http://www.businessinsider.com/percent-job-losses-in-post-wwii-recessions-2012-9
So now we see the President's plan to reduce the unemployment figures – simply have all the unemployed leave the work force, thereby causing the unemployment rate to be zero.
I suppose if one job was created, BHO would say we are "heading in the right direction". This is pathetic and depressing.
There were 111 million jobs at the beginning of the recession, after 4 years of Obamnomics there are 111.3 million employed. That's a net gain of 300,000 in roughly 4 years.
The actual unemployment rate for August was 14.7%, not 8.3% because the latter (U-1) figure is just those who are eligible for *and* are collecting unemployment insurance. Not everyone who doesn't have a job is eligible (e.g. recent college grads) and eventually people's benefits expire and they fall off this statistic. n nHence you really need to look at the U-6 figure and not the U-1 — and in every recession prior to this one, the media used the U-6 statistic and not the U-1 one being cited this time — that is how we had "double-digit" unemployment during the Carter years when things where a whole lot better than they are now — one of Obama's greatest "slight of hands" was getting away with substituting the U-1 for the U-6. n nNow, in fairness, the U-6 figure includes two groups of people whom one might not technically consider "unemployed" — (1) those who are working part-time because they can't find full-time work and (2) those who want to work but have given up looking for a job. One can argue either way on counting these people but I say we should — they would be working full time if there were jobs. n nAnd we won't even get into what I call the "U-7 figure" — the women who had been planning to have a child sometime and decided to have the kid now (when they didn't have a job) rather than later when they hope to have a job again. But after 18 months or so, unless they decide to have a second one, these women are ready to go back to work but really aren't reported in any of the statistics. n nAnother chilling statistic, only 63% of the population is in the workforce, the lowest it has been since 1981 — except that was before women entered the workforce in the numbers they are at now. Subtract out the women now in the workforce who wouldn't have been 31 years ago and this figure looks a whole lot worse than even without doing this. And for young people aged 16-24 — only 51% are in the workforce, the lowest percentage since the Korean war ended. n nAnd one other thing everyone is forgetting – the unemployment statistics are based on a telephone survey of 60,000 US households each month — landline telephones — which raises two wild areas of variance if one is trying to compare current statistics to past ones. First, there is the shift toward cell phones which is messing up all telephone surveys. And second, unlike in past recessions, we have Caller ID now — people dodging debt collectors may well not answer calls from numbers they don't recognize. n nHence even if BHO's Dept of Labor was doing an honest survey, it likely is going to underreport unemployment for the above reasons.
Thanks, Ed Alberts, for taking the time and making the effort to explain the difference between the situation and data three decades ago and the present.
I will add one thing – credit, if not already abused, is more of a buffer than it was in earlier recessions Even in the early '80s, credit cards were had to come by, now everyone has them unless they have already had a problem with them. And banks didnt' have the 'overdraft protection' line of credits they have now. n nHence, people have several thousand dollars of emergency credit (if they haven't already used it) that they didn't have in prior recessions. And this is a buffer not only in being able to use it outright, but to bridge between what you need to spend now and what is coming in shortly, and if people are very prudent, this is a final lifeline that prevents them from going overboard. n nOf course, once used, it isn't available anymore. Like the woman who goes and has the child, at a certain point, that time buffer is gone. And that is why I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get better…..
Since Democrat John F. Kennedy took office in January 1961, non-government payrolls in the U.S. swelled by almost 42 million jobs under Democrats, compared with 24 million for Republican presidents, according to Labor Department figures…Democrats hold the edge though they occupied the Oval Office for 23 years since Kennedy's inauguration, compared with 28 for the Republicans. So there you have …Vote Democrat.
As the Washington Post reported earlier this month, a recent JP Morgan study found that the American economy grew fastest when Democrats in charge of both 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Capitol Hill. Yeah, Democrats it is… Obama 2012
National Debt n nThe Republican tax cut windfall for the wealthy didn't merely produce the lowest total federal burden in 60 years and the highest income inequality in 80. GOP trickle down policies also drained the United States Treasury. n nIn case Americans had forgotten that Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt and George W. Bush doubled it, the New York Times presented this helpful reminder: n