For some liberal political strategists, the focus on the monthly federal jobs report that will come out later this morning is much ado about not all that very much. The unemployment and job creation numbers are, they say, just statistics that don’t necessarily tell us all that much about the economy and perhaps even less about the sentiment of voters. To which the sensible observer can only respond: Like hell, they don’t.
The question about why we’re all so obsessed with economic statistics this summer was the conceit of a New York Times feature that served to preview the latest jobs report due out on the first Friday of every month. According to many of those quoted by the paper, the problem with the jobs numbers obsession is they aren’t a true measure of the worthiness of President Obama’s economic program. Their fear is that the latest report as well as those that preceded it and those that will follow in the coming months may merely reflect a caprice of fortune in which a few ill-timed economic statistics can ruin the chances of an otherwise praiseworthy president to gain re-election. The experts consulted seem divided between those who think the predictive power of these stats is overrated and those who think they do mean a lot but aren’t necessarily fair to the president.
