Unemployment falls below 8

[Wrong Direction]

No, it shows a very good understanding of how to write a blog for the National Review or any other partisan source (left or right) that is more about driving the narrative than about objective analysis.

The timing and totally out of the ordinary nature of this report doesn't make you wonder, honestly?

Look, I genuinely hope I'm wrong. If the economy were growing at 3-5% with job creation regularly in the 200,000+ minimum range, I'd probably still be against he President but only because I have a different vision for where things like entitlements/foreign policy should go moving forward. I'd be much less adamant, even though the metrics above are really the bare minimum of what this country needs right now.

---------- Post added October-5th-2012 at 02:49 PM ----------

The piece you cited doesn't say that the drop in labor participation is demographically adjusted. Where did you see that? And how has it been adjusted?

Here is a piece from last month that attributes these numbers to a long-term trend: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/arti...ion_99874.html

At this pace of job creation, the unemployment rate should be barely drifting lower given underlying demographic trends.

I underlined it in post #67. The point there was about the 2012 rates overall, not a monthly change.

[Predicto]

The timing and totally out of the ordinary nature of this report doesn't make you wonder, honestly?

No, because I know how BLS works, just like SkinsHokieFan does.

The immediacy of the ATTACKS on the report by places like National Review should be far more telling to you. They didn't even have time to digest the report before they published the attacks on it. There is a reason for that.

Look, I genuinely hope I'm wrong. If the economy were growing at 3-5% with job creation regularly in the 200,000+ minimum range, I'd probably still be against he President but only because I have a different vision for where things like entitlements/foreign policy should go moving forward. I'd be much less adamant, even though the metrics above are really the bare minimum of what this country needs right now.

We were losing 800,000 jobs a month when Obama was elected. That is not an exaggeration. 10 million jobs per year. It takes years to pull out of a free fall like that with an economy this large. We are not nearly back to normal. The only thing that is good about this report is the trends continue to get a little better. No one is claiming otherwise.

[NLC1054]

If the unemployment number had gone up .1%, Republicans would be jumping up and down talking about how everything has gotten worse and Obama is the worst President in history and this recovery sucks and it's not working.

Unemployment goes down and lo and behold, there's something deeply flawed with the jobs report. It's not like Mitt Romney has campaigned for the last year on the very jobs report using the same methodology that is now, somehow, horribly flawed and now there's a conspiracy of massive proportions.

There's a way to look at the jobs numbers and argue that "yes, things are back to where we they were in 2009, but this recovery is still too slow, and my plan would help further shrink the unemployment number and do it this way." That's what I never get. Instead of taking the number and making it work to their political advantage, they make themselves look foolish by talking about how the jobs report doesn't make sense and it doesn't work, even though it's the same thing Mitt Romney has been campaigning on.

It makes him look like a massive hypocrite, which is the kind of thing you don't want in the face of having a very good showing coming off the debates.

[Dan T.]

It's hilarious the conniption fit this has generated among conservatives. They're tripping over themselves to discredit this minor piece of good news.

[NLC1054]

The timing and totally out of the ordinary nature of this report doesn't make you wonder, honestly?

No. Unemployment has been trending down very slowly but steadily over the course of the year. The jobs report comes out at the same time every single month; on the first Friday of the month. The timing is only curious if you're looking for a reason to believe that somehow there's a conspiracy at foot.

---------- Post added October-5th-2012 at 02:58 PM ----------

It's hilarious the conniption fit this has generated among conservatives. They're tripping over themselves to discredit this minor piece of good news.

It's bizarre and disheartening the way they are desperately pretending good news for the American people is always some sort of bad thing.

[DjTj]

I underlined it in post #67. The point there was about the 2012 rates overall, not a monthly change.

It doesn't say that the 1.1 million number is demographically adjusted. It appears to me that the 1.1 million number is a real number, not an adjusted number.

And wouldn't another explanation for the disconnect between growth and unemployment rate be the fact that many of the jobs are part-time jobs or lower paying jobs? GDP growth should be tied to productivity, not strictly to employment. There are many factors that could cause a drop in unemployment that is not proportional to growth in GDP.

[Dan T.]

Fox News web page headline:

Jobless Rate Dips Under 8 Percent... But is the Number Real

Fox Nation web page headline:

Jobs Report Too Good to Be True? Wealth Manager Says, 'No Way in the World These Numbers Are Accurate'

[Popeman38]

No, it shows a very good understanding of how to write a blog for the National Review or any other partisan source (left or right) that is more about driving the narrative than about objective analysis. National Review understands that it is important to blunt this message before it takes hold in the public consciousness as good news for Obama.

You saw the same thing in the left wing blogs that were talking about Big Bird yesterday morning rather than about Obama's flat performance in the debate.

Thanks you for injecting some sanity. I had typed out several responses, but they all probably would have reulted in a vacation for me, and I don't wanna go on vacation during football season.

[Hersh]

You seem like a nice, reasonable and smart guy (as does PeterMP), so forgive me if I come across the wrong way. However, I don't think this even hits the standard of good news compared to what the economy needs to recover from the great recession. Statistical quirk is about all I can take from this, perhaps with an added description of "relatively good, but only when compared to other putrid recent economic reports."

No, Mr. President, this is not evidence that we need to stay the course. Far from it.

If the US economy had add 300,000 jobs you'd still be saying the same thing and if unemployment had gone up .3% you'd be posting how it's proof things are going so poorly.

[Buford]

Ok, we'll chalk this one up to a statistical quirk and assume that anemic GDP growth has no correlation with jobs growth. Maybe we're seeing jobs growth leading GDP growth this time around, as opposed to what history would say?

Maybe this is all due to the release of the new iPhone?

I'm sorry, but when numbers like this come out that have no relation to any other economic trend, I get suspicious. There's no law change, economic change, or political change that explains a sudden and sharp change. Perhaps the last two poor jobs reports were also "statistical anomolies" that coincidentally had the effect of making this report look much more positive right in the middle of election season?

As the rest of the Pethokoukis blogs point out, the larger jobs picture is 1) worse now than in 2011 and 2) only appearing better because 1.2 million people (demographically adjusted, so this isn't about old people) have dropped out of the denominator.

If this were the 1st month things have been improving. But look at what's happened since Obama took office. It peaked and now has SLOWLY been heading the right direction. This isn't new. Its been on the edge of 8% for months now. If it broke through right after the election and Romney had won, that changes nothing. Bottom line is that Gov't Jobs have been shrinking and private sector has been growing, and overall the % is back to where it was when this admin can into office. Not to say that the day somebody is sworn in things reset. It takes time to stop a runaway train and then reverse it. Now people should want it to speed up. This is was a recovery looks like when you do it so quickly from such a sharp crash.




( from http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...ment-data#data)

[Wrong Direction]

If the US economy had add 300,000 jobs you'd still be saying the same thing and if unemployment had gone up .3% you'd be posting how it's proof things are going so poorly.

Unfortunatley, we have no clue if this is a true statement because we've seen nothing like that number under Obama.

---------- Post added October-5th-2012 at 04:06 PM ----------

And wouldn't another explanation for the disconnect between growth and unemployment rate be the fact that many of the jobs are part-time jobs or lower paying jobs? GDP growth should be tied to productivity, not strictly to employment. There are many factors that could cause a drop in unemployment that is not proportional to growth in GDP.

Sure, makes sense. What doesn't make sense is a huge jump in seasonally adjusted part time employment without any trend saying that'll happen, major new policy taking effect, or anything else.

---------- Post added October-5th-2012 at 04:08 PM ----------

The jobs report comes out at the same time every single month; on the first Friday of the month. The timing is only curious if you're looking for a reason to believe that somehow there's a conspiracy at foot.

Yes, I know when the jobs report is released every month. The coincidence was in the timing of a huge bounce that is unexplained by trend lines or any other policy. A .3% jump is a huge monthly change. Certainly a statistical surprise, at a minimum.

[Larry]

Yes, I know when the jobs report is released every month. The coincidence was in the timing of a huge bounce that is unexplained by trend lines or any other policy. A .3% jump is a huge monthly change. Certainly a statistical surprise, at a minimum.

You keep making that claim, over and over and over, about how this report just absolutely has to be fake, because it's so unprecedented.

Unfortunately, that's not true, either.

As has already been pointed out, unemployment has been trending downward, for years.

The number of employed has been trending upward, for years.

Yeah, even I have said that if you just look at the unemployment %, then this feels like a sudden jump. But the original post even explains that, too. The gains of the last two months (which, I observe, Republicans in here have been trying to ignore as merely estimates) were actually not optimistic enough.

In short, this isn't a case of the numbers suddenly making a big one-month jump. It's been going on for months

[Wrong Direction]

Larry, I genuinely hope you're right. I mean that.

[PeterMP]

As the rest of the Pethokoukis blogs point out, the larger jobs picture is 1) worse now than in 2011 and 2) only appearing better because 1.2 million people (demographically adjusted, so this isn't about old people) have dropped out of the denominator.

Where'd you get 1.2 million people from?

Your link does say:

"Moreover, declining labor force participation over the last year (resulting in 1.1 million people disappearing from the labor force) accounts for much of the rest of the decline."

But it doesn't say that's a demographically adjusted number.

It also says:

"At this pace of job creation, the unemployment rate should be barely drifting lower given underlying demographic trends."

I'd take declinging unemployment rates as a good thing. They certainly are better than the alternative.

Now, since they don't actually give a number (and even if they did w/o telling me how they did it given what they did w/ percentages and absolutes, I'd be dubious), it is hard for me to determine how good. Is 1% "drifting"?

But that certainly seems to disagree w/ what you've said, from your own link!

---------- Post added October-5th-2012 at 04:38 PM ----------

I underlined it in post #67. The point there was about the 2012 rates overall, not a monthly change.

You need to go back and read post #67.

You appear to be remembering what you want. Not what was actually written.

[Wrong Direction]

You appear to be remembering what you want. Not what was actually written.

Now you're just confusing me.

There are two pictures of the jobs situation. One is a longer trend that is pretty anemic. The other is this one monthly number which spiked up. I know how alpha spending works, so I understand that data will spike. I know how data collection works, so I know that slight changes in methods can skew results regardless of intent.

We'll see if this surge in part-time work holds and converts into full-time work for some. If so, it's relatively good news. If not, it's a statistical outlier. Time will tell.

I am trying to think of explanations for this surge. Kids are in school in September, maybe they're working more part time jobs to help pay the bills? Maybe the relatively quiet hurricane season helped? Maybe the previous part-time numbers are showing a trend that I'm not aware of? Other?