Jobs Report: Good for Kerry or Bush?

[Jack_Dawson]

Isn't it about what they estimated? Ot is this ammo for Kerry?

[Langis]

1. That was a very bad Jobs report

It's good for Kerry

[Jack_Dawson]

2. Why was it bad?

I'm not an economist.

[JuniorPlankton]

9. They missed the estimates

150K are needed to keep up with the labor force increase.

Most jobs are service jobs, while manufacturing LOST 18K jobs.

[TahitiNut]

22. No, 250K jobs are needed, not 150K.

:shrug:

Based on the average jobs increase for September over the past 50 years, we needed 242,530 new jobs just to break even.

[JuniorPlankton]

24. I doubt it, but don't have hard data

250K a month means an increase in the labor force of 3M per year.
Is it really true?

[TahitiNut]

25. Yes. The AVERAGE employment growth for the last 30-50 years ...

.... has been at a 2.1% annual rate. With a workforce of over 130 million, that's over 2.6 million new jobs annually - on AVERAGE.

In only eight years, there were over 23 million new jobs during the Clinton administration. Do the arithmetic.

[sfecap]

13. A couple of reasons it's bad for the chimp....

1. Missed the estimates by about 30%.

2. The jobs that were created are mostly in the service industry, not high paying.

3. Proves that his economic "policies" aren't working.

4. Last report before the election.

5. Net job LOSS during the idiots term.

He won't be able to spin his way out of this, but he'll try, and he'll look like the idiot that he is. :-)

[ProfessorGAC]

16. It's Bad Because. . .

. . .first the estimates were not that robust. Secondly, the growth was not even as good as these marginal estimates. Thirdly, the trend analysis indicates that the growth in jobs is barely sufficient to sustain the growth in "employable" people. So, that's not returning those folks who lost jobs in the last 4 years BACK TO WORK!

Therefore, we've created an equilibrium of unemployed people, and at the highest proportion of skilled labor in our history, all at a time when the median household income is falling v. the CoL. In an economy that's rooted 70% in consumption and 20+% in gov't spending, reduced employment means reduced consumption and lowered gov't revenues. These are both net drags on real GDP growth.

That's why this is a problem. Not that you'll hear this on the news. But, they are the macroeconomic facts of life.
The Professor

[Jack_Dawson]

17. Hey thanks!

And I didn't pay a dollar in tuition. Beerz on me.

:toast:

[ProfessorGAC]

20. I'll Take A Guiness, Please.

The Professor

[Skittles]

28. The Professor is one smart cookie

he explains stuff that is high-level yet still easy for those of us not schooled in economics to understand. YES INDEED!

[Skittles]

27. conventional analysis in the past few days has been

it needed to be at LEAST 150,000 to be "good" for Bush

[MallRat]

3. It's not even close to estimates.

Analysts were expecting 140-150k. This is way off the mark.

-MR

[Goldmund]

4. It was much worse than they estimated

And even Republicans think it's bad for Bush.

"In political terms, sure, this isn't good for the President," Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, a Bush supporter, said to CNNfn.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/08/news/economy/jobless_september/index.htm?cnn=yes

[Jack_Dawson]

8. Wow he didn't get the memo

[Owlet]

5. Bad for the people looking for jobs

That's the real story here, isn't it? Sure, the numbers are better for Kerry and i hope he hammers Bush with them, but the bottom line is that job creation is not keeping up with the growth of the workforce, and that hurts us all.

[Ezlivin]

10. Exactly

It's hard to discuss how bad economic news can help "our" guy when it hurts so many people.

Perhaps we could develop a better sense of outrage over the facts, rather than appraising them merely in their effect on Kerry's election hopes.

[supercrash]

6. Jeeesh

The Bush economic team claimed there would be 300,000 jobs per month at this time...then it was downgraded to 200,000

A number we still cannot reach , the taxcuts have failed

Kerry needs to hammer on this

[napi21]

7. Bad for shrub. Estimate was 150,000 to 200,000 new jobs.

Even the spinners are saying how bad this report missed the mark. The economy requires 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep even with new people entering the job market.

[Hello_Kitty]

11. * buddy Commerce Sec'y

Was on CNN spinning that everything's going great b/c more people are working in this country than EVER before! Uh...there are more PEOPLE in the US than ever before, dude. But that's what he was doing.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Still A Lower Proportion Than In The 90's Though

That requires, however, that Snow know how to use the % key on a calculator. I doubt he does.
The Professor

[TahitiNut]

29. Wrong. There were 133,372,000 people employed in November 2000.

Four years later and we're still nowhere near that.
Last month (September 2004), there were 131,916,000 people employed. That's 1,456,000 fewer jobs - nearly 1.5 MILLION.

Now, that's ACTUAL employment. If you want to use "seasonally adjusted" numbers, we hit the maximum in March 2001 with 132,507,000 people employed. Last month's 131,567,000 jobs was 940,000 fewer people employed.

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

[PATRICK]

12. Record on missing estimates

diminishes trust in any of W's rosy claims for the future. They should be listed in the debate. Either the government pumps up the figures(which takes a while to explain) or the Bush team is incompetent and heading a downtrend in denial, which is not the river in Egypt.

[Owlet]

14. Here are the estimates

http://www.jobwatch.org/

The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which took effect in July 2003, its "Jobs and Growth Plan." The president's economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA, see background documents), projected that the plan would result in the creation of 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004 — 306,000 new jobs each month starting in July 2003. The CEA projected that the economy would generate 228,000 jobs a month without a tax cut and 306,000 jobs a month with the tax cut. Thus, it projected that 4,284,000 jobs would be created over the last 14 months. In reality, since the tax cuts took effect, there are 2,668,000 fewer jobs than the administration projected would be created by enactment of its tax cuts. The August job growth of 144,000 fell 162,000 jobs short of the administration's projection. As can be seen in the chart below, job creation failed to meet the administration's projections in 12 of the past 14 months.

[truthpusher]

15. We need 150K Jobs per month just to keep up with people entering the job

market. If we only created 96,000 then that means there are 54,000 workers that need jobs without the positions for them to fill.

If I am understanding the 150K a month needed then the estimated 580,000 jobs lost under Bush is a fantasy number. Over a 45 month period we should have added 6,750,000 jobs. This would put the Bush administration at 7,330,000 jobs under the minimum required to keep the economy at pace. The problem is these numbers are so huge I am not even sure if Kerry can use them without sounding like an exaggerator :shrug:

[TahitiNut]

26. Wrong. We need about 250K new jobs per month just to keep up.

(As I keep correcting folks.) :shrug:

[nostamj]

18. i heard Don Evans this morning

and, apparantly, i HAVE a job!

does anyone know where? I'm probably REALLY late for work.

thanks!

[FloridaPat]

19. The worst part - they've pulled out all the stops to make things good

for the election! Imagine how bad it's going to be next year. Frankly I am close to panic about next year no matter who wins. But if Bushco get back in, I may have to leve the country.

[Jack_Dawson]

23. I'm with ya. Czech Republic? Spain? Sweden?

[ibleedblue]

30. How's this for a spin??

On AAR at lunch they were saying *'s economic people were saying the low numbers were due to the hurricanes that hit Florida. So of the 250k or so jobs that were supposed to be added, 154k of them were supposed to be in Florida? Geez, come on Nazi's...give me a break!

BTW, long time lurker, first time poster.

[TahitiNut]

31. Welcome to DU, ibleedblue.

:hi:

In my 60+ years on this planet, I've never heard an adminstration so totally incapable of telling the truth. Never. These people are bald-faced liars!

[newyawker99]

32. Hi ibleedblue!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: