171,000 plus jobs lost in Oct (anyone know when Unemployment # due out)

This is twice the number(125%increase) of September. How will GW spin this?

"The 7% jump in the ecomony! The tax cuts and * sound economic policies worked!

Now stop bringing up all those negative things. You're as bad as those Iraqi naysayers."

I keep seeing that 7.2% number and I know in my head that it has to be Bush fuzzy math but even if it wasn't there are two things I would say to crush Republican pundits when they claim this as the largest increase in 20 years.

1. Considering how far the economy fell to begin with a 7% jump doesn't end up being that big because we're still so far in the hole.

2. The only people that see those 7.2% jumps are rich CEOs and stockholders. Regular workers don't see any benefit. Of course that's the biggest flaw of the Bush Admin's economic policy, catering to stockholders and corporate CEOs. The entire economy doesn't run off how the market does in general. Real people actually get affected when they have no place to work.

So with this raise in the unemployment numbers along with the fact that the actual recession ended in Nov. 2001 and Bush's tax cuts likely caused such a slow recovery from it, can we finally spit in Bush's face when he tries to lie to us about that economy again?

Rp

It's jobs that are the focus.

Here are quarterly GDP numbers from the last 3 years.

2000Q4 1.1
2001Q1 -0.6
2001Q2 -1.59
2001Q3 -0.29
2001Q4 2.74
2002Q1 5.04
2002Q2 1.25
2002Q3 4.03
2002Q4 1.38
2003Q1 1.43
2003Q2 3.28
2003Q3 7.15

Looking at the traditional unemployment lag, unemployment should have peaked December, 2002. It peaked June, 2003 at 6.4%. Why the late-Spring bounce is unclear. Job growth should be modest throughout the next year, taking off right around election day. We appear to be about six months behind the 1984 elections in the economic cycle; and one year ahead of where we were at this point in the 1992 elections.

My prediction: On election day, 2004, the unemployment rate will be 5%. The candidate would be foolish to run on jobs as an issueif the rate is anything below 5.5%.

they just picked up two governorships - apparently the people approve of the GOP.

First these are southern states. You need to get used to the fact that the south is reverting back to the 1950's. Many states had Dem or Rep Governor's when they were swept by the opposite party's candidate ie Reagan/Clinton. It doesnt matter what party is in the Governors mansion, look at all the states the Dems won in 2000 that had either a Rep Gov or had two Rep senators(PA) and Gore carried. If you have a good candidate like Clinton you can win any state. The past proves this.

I'm not sure it could be done now - repugs are slowly controlling EVERYTHING

Weekly UE#s come out on Thursday. The thing to watch is the revision of last week's #s. It's funny how it works.

A short time back the numbers came in at 385,000. Great joy and delight all around. Lemmings flocking to the Buy windows. Ok.

The following week #s come out at 386,000 and decrease of 4000!! Whaaaa??? Oh, we forgot to mention that revision of last week's #s to 390,000. heh heh

Mmm hmm.

Julie

n/t

this is additional to the 8/9 million already lost US jobs since bushco

IIRC it was to be revised down too.

You gotta be careful... I read an estimate of 170,000 jobs *gained.* And Bureau of Labor and Statistics says last month, there were 57,000 jobs gained. :hi:

Here's the inevitible:

The Productivity numbers, a leading economic indicator, are through the rood lately. That means that the 7.2% GDP growth, while probably a high estimate, is not a fluke. The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator, about 18 months behind. It tends to grow when productivity outstrips GDP growth.

The job market remains flaccid because the productivity is growing at its fastest rate since 1950. That means the GDP *will* go up. When the productivity slackens off this insustainable pace, the GDP will linger high, and the unemployment rate will drop.

This is not prediction; this is certainty. The growth has occurred, the jobs will follow. And looking 18 months ahead of Q3 (say, end of 2004... the election), we can know that talking about joblessness will leave the candidate looking like Walter Mondale.

The answer to Bush is not attacking his economic record; it's about economic fairness. We're gonna lose the debate on whether tax cuts are good; we have to make it about who should get the tax cuts. Bush is very vulnerable on deficit issues; We're going to lose the debate on tax hikes vs. spending. We have to make it about what spending should get cut, and which taxes should be lower than they were in 2001.

And it's still a net loss of 41,000 for the 3 months ending September. As total population (and workforce) grows and employment stays effectively flat or less, that means unemployment.


Here's the "seasonally adjusted" nonfarm employment graph ...


Oh ... "The next release of Productivity and Costs is scheduled for 8:30 AM EST, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2003. Preliminary third-quarter measures for business, nonfarm business, and manufacturing will be released at that time."

That's tomorrow. I'm willing to bet the business hours are down at least 2.5% again. (People are working "off the clock".)

Interesting points - but how much of the productivity jump can be attributable to layoffs?

After all, productivity changes always lags layoffs, because product keeps coming down the pipeline quite a while after the employees (who are now layed off) put the product in the pipeline, thus the productivity is skewed upward.