The main news in this report is a marked upswing in the rate of payroll job growth. The 163,000 rate shown in this report is likely to close to the economy’s underlying growth rate at this point. Many analysts became overly optimistic as a result of the weather boosted jobs gains last winter. They then became overly pessimistic as a result of the payback in the spring as employment growth that would ordinarily take place in these months had already occurred. With construction getting stronger and retail sales likely improving in the fall, it is reasonable to expect job growth in the range of 160,000-180,000 over the rest of the year. This is better than the last few months, but it will take a decade at this pace to make up the jobs deficit. – Dean Baker
POLITICAL ANALYSIS on the July jobs report in the Beltway is perfectly epitomized by the ever friendly Chris Cilizza in the widely read, “The Fix.”
In short: Things need to change quickly for Obama when it comes to the jobs numbers. If they don’t, he will almost certainly face an electorate this fall — no matter what happens in October — that believes the economy is still sputtering and his plans to fix it haven’t worked. – President Obama is running out of time on the economy
What exactly does “running out of time” mean here?
As you see from economist Dean Baker’s analysis, it’s going to take a decade to get out of the hole both Democrats and Republicans, but also the American people, have dug.
I say the American people, because people keep voting for politicians who are part of the problem, as they did this week in Mr. Cruz down in Texas. Austerity hyping, tax cutting, revenue averse Tea Party fiscal stranglers who suck on the teat of Grover Norquist’s destructive tax pledge fetish are only going to make things worse.
And as for Pres. Obama “running out of time,” that might be the case in a void, but this is an election year where Republicans are nominating a man who’s had the worst month you can have as a potential candidate for president, with Team Obama just getting started.
So, the person who is “running out of time” is Mitt Romney.
By a 52% to 37% margin, more voters say they have an unfavorable than favorable view of Mitt Romney.
And believe it or not, this was before his foreign policy trip.
Team Obama has defined him these last 6 weeks, with Romney doing a lot to help. He’s got a long way to go to come back, which is possible, but Team Romney needs to pull a lot more than a rabbit out of their hat.
They also need Pres. Obama and his team to falter.
graphic via Calculated Risk
There seems to be this obsession with jobs created while ignoring what kind of jobs are created. The United States now has more low wage jobs than any other industrialized economy in the world with the exception of South Korea; in addition, new hires at the auto companies are earning 14.00 dollars an hour, Caterpillar ( bloodsuckers ) is also creating two tier wage levels with new workers earning less than half of their peers. Many of the newly created manufacturing jobs are paying a fraction of what they used to. It’s about spending power, that’s what made this country different. It’s disposable income that made this economy grow . I believe those days are gone forever and the voters, in their utter stupidity, are killing themselves with every trip to the ballot box.
And falter he does:
Simple: the BLS “added” 377K jobs for seasonal purposes. This was the largest seasonal addition in the past decade for a July NFP print in the past decade, possibly ever, as the first chart below shows. But wait, there’s more: the Birth Death adjustment, which adds to the NSA Print to get to the final number, was +52k. How does this compare to July 2011? It is about 1000% higher: the last B/D adjustment was a tiny +5K! In other words, of the 163,000 jobs “added”, 429,000 was based on purely statistical fudging
Come November, the economy and jobs are going to be the only thing on voters’ minds.
And Romney has nothing to offer the voters along those lines other than more failed supply side solutions. He can’t seem to make an economic sale to save his life.