New Economic data out!

[STING2]

Job figures for June and July were revised upwards and Job growth in August was strong. Unemployment has dropped again, now down to 5.4%! This was just released about an hour ago.

Very good news for Bush!

 

[nbcrusader]

Bad news for the economic "girlie men"

 

[DrTeeth]

Good news for the former unemployed mostly.

 

[Klaus]

STING2
sounds good

nbc
well i know you ment it as a joke but i know people who really disslike this "girlie men" thing so maybee we can use other words...

 

[cydewaze]

Interesting that we still have a net job loss since Bush took office. If I was put in charge of a company, and I lost $1 million in the first half of the year, and made back $500k in the second half of the year, would I still get to keep my job?

 

[nbcrusader]

Interesting that we still have a net job loss since Bush took office. If I was put in charge of a company, and I lost $1 million in the first half of the year, and made back $500k in the second half of the year, would I still get to keep my job?

Depends how bad the company was messed up before you took over and if there were other external factors involved....

 

[ThatGuy]

In February they projected the creation of 1.7 million more jobs at this point than have actually been created. What happened?

EDITED TO ADD: Actually, I'm not sure about the 1.7 million. But we were supposed to add 2.6 million jobs this year. How close are we to that goal?

 

[deep]

I hope it is true.


I know more and more people that are losing their jobs.

the government reported Friday, in one of the last big employment reports before the November election.

Sting,

I hope this is not like the report you posted that said terrorism was down due to Bush.

only to have Powell have to admit that report was rubbish and terror was up dramatically.

 

[ILuvLarryMullen]

Sting is right, 144,000 new jobs have been created.


I think the recent report that over a million additional people that have fallen into poverty kind of cancels it out though

 

[STING2]

I hope it is true.


I know more and more people that are losing their jobs.





Sting,

I hope this is not like the report you posted that said terrorism was down due to Bush.

only to have Powell have to admit that report was rubbish and terror was up dramatically.

Powell did not say the report was "rubbish" and no report has said that terrorism is dramatically up to the degree your suggesting. In fact, the new report stated that the level of terrorism was about where it was in 1983. That does not sound terrible to me.

In fact there are a couple of new reports stating that war in general has dramatically dropped over the past 10 years.

We all know the Kerry campaign is disappointed today.

There is only one statistic that the Kerry camp is clinging to on the economy, and it is debatable if that statistic is even accurate.

W now has a lower unemployment rate than when Bill Clinton was re-elected in 1996. Unemployment may very well fall to below 5% by January.

 

[pax]

What kind of jobs are they, though? If 10,000 unemployed engineers and laborers who were making $15-$20/hour are now working for minimum wage at McDonald's or Wal-Mart, I wouldn't call that a good report.

ILLM makes a good point: The numbers on families in poverty are still way, way up. Creation of jobs that pay minimum wage or slightly above it isn't going to help that stat.

 

[Salome]

ouch

more people working =
more people with money to spend =
a growing demand on products =
inflation

I hope this news won't hurt Bush' campaig too much
because it would be foolish to suggest he can control all economic mutations

 

[Danospano]

Yeah, paxetaurora is on the right track. I would desperately want to believe that our economy was improving, but the jobs that are replacing the old ones are minimum wage service jobs. That means people are working harder, for less...and are just barely making ends meet.

 

[STING2]

Its amazing, democrats in the Clinton era would be dancing and cheering over this kind of news. Also, with the poverty statistics, what precisely was the time period covered for the report. I ask that because sometimes there can be up to a 1 to 2 year lag between the time that the data is taken and the final report that is posted with its findings. I have no doubt that the poverty rate from 2002 to 2003 increased because unemployment was still increasing during that time as well. But unemployment since September 2003 has been falling. Also, if poverty in the time period prior to the reports time period had been some how undereported, that could also explain the increase.

The major economic variables, GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation all indicate a strong economy. The fact is, consumer spending is up, and that would not be possible if as some have suggested in hear, a substantial number of people with high paying jobs were now making minimum wage. The strong GDP growth the economy is having is impossible without strong consumer spending.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

If you look at the reports... jobs in every sector have been added over the past year... manufacturing, health care, social assistance, financial services and professional services like computer systems design, etc. These are non-farm jobs that are listed in the report. Of course people want to think that all the jobs this year are coming from Mickey D's.


I don't see how people keep ignoring the tech bubble and 9/11 as not having an effect on why jobs have been lost. Also people ignore the fact that un-employment at 5.4 % when compared to 70s, 80s, 90s ... is alright. Employment will never reach 0% or even 3% to be honest.

Also what is a minimum wage service job?

 

[The Disciple]

Funny, if this post showed that the past 2 months had been horrendous, there would be 5 pages worth of bomb-throwing dialogue on here...