Republicans Try To Deny Good Jobs Report
There was finally a good jobs report this month, showing a gain of 162,000 jobs in the month of March. It’s the best jobs report in 3 years, giving further evidence of the beginning of a recovery. Republicans tried to get in front of the good news by denying it’s good news:
The RNC immediately responded by releasing a briefing that claims that the job growth occured “mostly” due to hiring Census workers:
But March Job Growth Is “Disappointment” Because Job Gains Mostly From Census. “CalculatedRisk reports that even if Friday’s employment report shows a gain of 200,000 jobs in March, as expected, it might be viewed as a disappointment: ‘The March report will be distorted by two factors: 1) any bounce back from the snow storms, and 2) the decennial Census hiring that picked up sharply in March. … Also the Census will add something like 100,000 workers to the March report …” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 4/2/10; Ben White and Eamon Javers, Politico’s “Morning Money,” 3/30/10)
The referenced articles were all published before the actual jobs report came out. It turns out that most of the jobs were created in the private sector. Census hiring only accounted for 48,000 jobs in the March report (I find the argument that census jobs aren’t jobs is a little strange, anyway).
The RNC’s claim bears little relation to reality. Of the 162,000 jobs added to the economy last month, 123,000 were in the private sector. Joel Naroff, the president of Naroff Economic Advisors, wrote in a note to clients that “the federal government didn’t hire nearly as many Census workers as thought. It was the private sector that stepped up to the plate.” In fact, the Census Bureau hired only 48,000 workers. Speaker Pelosi’s office put out a chart using Bureau of Labor Statistics data that illustrates the job gains:
The recovery is still new and fragile and unemployment is still way too high at 9.7%, but we’re definitely starting to see a positive trend.
Tags: Economy, Unemployment
Dang they are so good at snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Ya gotta know these talking points will be on all MSM news tonight and nobody will go back and correct them.
Still, there are questions that ought to be raised about these numbers, in light of the fact that just days ago we got a report from the government about the loss of 23,000 private sector jobs.
1) Are the jobs in this report public or private sector?
2) Are the jobs in this report full or part time?
3) Are the jobs in this report permanent or temporary?
I’d call that an attempt to analyze the data more thoroughly before blithely accepting the claims of recovery — especially given the number of times that the Obama Administration has been wrong on the economy (like the claim that passing the stimulus would guarantee that we would not see unemployment above 8%).
Consider this article, for example — http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jobs-data-has-plenty-of-bad-news-to-mar-the-good-2010-04-02?reflink=MW_news_stmp
GOP Strategy Memo Abstract:
1) Party of “NO!” – Pessimism, End of Times, etc.
2) ????????
3) Electoral success!!
There’s no denying that the employment situation is still very bad. There is also no denying that this economy has been shedding jobs for 2 years — remember BushCo breaking this economy?
But this is still the best jobs report since Marsh 2007. And the fact that there were more private sector jobs than predicted is a good thing. There were manufacturing jobs added, and the average workweek hours were up. (Only 48K of those jobs were from the census>) Both January and February jobs numbers were revised *up*.
The good news here is that employment has stabilized since companies and workers started paying the price for conservative policies. The bad news is that growth is not very robust, likely won’t be for awhile and there are still aftershocks of the BushCo mess still very much possible.
And if all of these wingnuts would stop demogoguing the census and ask people to fill out the forms and send them in, well, the census wouldn’t need to hire so many workers, would they?
Right, this is a big f—ing deal…under 8% now.
I don’t know why Republicans keep bringing up the unemployment rate. It belongs to them, after all.
Cassandra — but that is precisely the point I’m getting at with my questions. Is it REALLY the best jobs report, or are the numbers actually an illusion caused by massive temporary hiring and a glut of part-time jobs that no one can survive on? And what of the total number of unemployed, including discouraged workers? Is unemployment “better” because of the number of folks who have just said “screw it!” and given up looking?
Oh, and anon — the economy and all unemployment numbers became Barack Obama’s when the stimulus bill passed. After all, he guaranteed us that his measures would keep unemployment under 8% — an epic fail if there ever was one.
the economy and all unemployment numbers became Barack Obama’s when the stimulus bill passed.
Look at the chart again, dummy.
The chart was made so even morons would understand it. But you still flunked.
Indeed he did flunk. And nor is he capable of reading the report himself. Because there are a number of questions there that he could have answered. But that also means that he wouldn’t know that temp hiring is a typical prelude to long-term hiring. People who are doing the hiring are going to want some confidence that investing in long term hiring will be worth it.
The so-called Party of Business strikes again.
Or, as in the case of the Census, temp hiring is a prelude to permanent firing after the census is done.
Unfortunately, according to the private sector payroll services, private sector employment dropped. I hope the government numbers are right. We need a break, but they will likely be revised down.
But fortunately, looking a this same reports that you haven’t seen, so you aren’t able to contextualize — even the ADP report is the best one since Feb 2008. This still means that the economy is shedding jobs at a much slower rate than it was when BushCo broke the economy.
The biggest reason that the ADP report still isn’t showing a net gain in jobs has to do with construction industry mainly, manufacturing secondarily. But since no one will be building much for quite sometime, this is going to be a persistent problem. Nonetheless, the economy not shedding jobs nearly as fast as you guys engineered it to is better than the alternative.