Yup, there will be a bounce... job numbers were really good

[nadinbrzezinski]

for the job numbers. And to my shock and surprise (no, really) delusional mitt promises what can't happen... energy independent in eight years... yup, we call that desperation Mitt.

In case you wonder, unemployment dropped to 8.1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-adds-96k-jobs-in-august-unemployment-rate-drops-to-81-percent/2012/09/07/30374bfa-f8e9-11e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_story.html

[B2G]

1. Job numbers were GOOD?

What was good about them? Did we see two different reports??

[loli phabay]

3. my tthought as well i thought they came in under expectations

[deutsey]

7. I heard left economist Doug Henwood say there was nothing good about the numbers

[bigwillq]

5. Would you rather have lost 90K+ jobs?

[B2G]

8. Of course not

That doesn't make these numbers anything to celebrate.

[bigwillq]

12. I feel this is the new normal

I am sure those 90K+ are celebrating, or at least grateful they found a job.

[RainbowOverTexas]

24. considering

that 125K new people enter the workforce every month, any jobs number less than that is BAD. Sure 90K jobs is less bad than losing jobs but there is not a context where it is considered good.

[bigwillq]

29. Hello

Welcome to DU!

[RainbowOverTexas]

35. TYVM

nt

[loli phabay]

25. yup best of luck to them but remember a lot more people gave up looking

[malaise]

32. Compared to four years ago??? n/t

[LiberalLoner]

2. Reminds me of when Newt Gingrich promised a base on the moon by the end of his term as Pres.

[loli phabay]

4. ah space 1999 i so wish it were true.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Yup, that it did

[zappaman]

6. You must be living in a different world

The one I live in showed that job numbers were much less than expected.
Certainly not "good", yup.

[Agnosticsherbet]

9. NPR, while interviewing a right wing pundit, quoted Ryan calling the job numbers "tepid"

I think if it ironic that NPR is, more often than not, an avid supporter of Republicans. The irony comes form the fact that Republicans have consistently tried to cancel NPR. It is like raising the person that poisons you.

[Vox Moi]

10. Since when is a small positive a negative?

Not as much as we'd like to see but certainly not negative numbers.
If we'd lost 100k jobs, that would be negative.
While we're at it ... I'd like to know more about the notion that people have 'given up looking' and thus are not in the accounting.
Did they all move to the Cayman Islands?

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. That be people like my BIL, actual example.

who gave up a while ago, well before Obama actually. His field, was outsourced in major ways, go ahead, go get a job in technical writing. The pay also has crashed due to that competition with foreign workers. And it is a good example of what has happened across many technical fields.

And that is a structural problem. These are very long term unemployed who have lost skills and also contacts. No, they did not move to the Caymans, they went back to college, if they were near retirement, well they have retired, things like that.

Of course that is the place where wonks live. Most folks just look at the surface number, which was good.

[B2G]

11. The unemployment number dropped because

400K people quit looking for jobs. Adjusted for this, the rate would have risen to 8.4%.

Yippee!!

[cynatnite]

13. Not good, but not bad. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Think about Joe Six Pack

There will be a bounce.

It truly hinged on that.

[cynatnite]

20. I do think we will have a bounce from the convention...

Last edited Fri Sep 7, 2012, 07:29 PM - Edit history (1)

I just doubt it will be because of these numbers.

[loli phabay]

27. yeah because joe six pack is to dumb to do math sorry its arithmetic

I think its easy to work with four hundred thousand leaving the workforce and ninety odd thousand getting jobs even incan see those are mot brilliant numbers.

[MineralMan]

14. No, they weren't "really good."

The unemployment number went down, but the new jobs number was way below estimates.

I'm not sure what numbers you were looking at. They're not "really good" at all, but the lower unemployment rate balances the other number a bit.

Fortunately, the stock market has other things to be glad about, but these numbers will have no impact on poll results. Any bounce will be due solely to a great convention and great speakers at that convention. These job numbers wouldn't generate any bounce at all.

[girl gone mad]

26. The stock market was "glad about" the shitty jobs report.

A bad number increases the pressure on Bernanke to go ahead and pump more money into the stock market via QE.

[Shrek]

17. Actually they weren't

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/07/news/economy/august-jobs-report/index.html

The economy added 96,000 jobs in August, down from 141,000 jobs in July, the Department of Labor said Friday.

At least 150,000 jobs need to be created each month to simply keep pace with the growing population.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Actually they were

or would you rather have 96,000 jobs lost.

There are days.

[Shrek]

22. That isn't really relevant

Obviously any gain is better than a loss. But it still doesn't make today's report "really good" given that it's not even enough to keep up with population growth, let alone put the long-term unemployed back to work.

Matt Yglesias:

Pretty bad new jobs report today says the economy added 96,000 new jobs in August and also featured downward revisions to the June and July payroll numbers. In particular, July's solid if non-spectacular 163,000 is down to a middling 141,000 and June's bad 64,000 is down to a terrible 45,000.

I always like to emphasize the revisions. Collecting this data is pretty hard, so the revisions are pretty large. The ultimate August number could end up quite different from this one. All the data this month is pointing in the same direction—not good.

Now on a political level I think Obama's fortunes might be bolstered by the fact that the household survey showed a smallish decline in the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is I think a better-known indicator to the average person, and a decline is better than a non-decline. The reality, however, is that this was basically driven by people dropping out of the labor force. Not all of that is a bad thing per se—it's fine for people to retire early or whatever—but it's hard to see it as "good news" for the economy on any level.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/09/07/_96_000_new_jobs_in_august_and_unemployment_falls.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. It is the best August in six years

I guess you will still claim it's really bad.

There are definitely days. Free clue, corporate media will down play any report from here to november...

[loli phabay]

28. numbers are numbers are numbers kinda hard to screw them up

[Ellipsis]

21. This was actually the best August jobs report in six years...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021294320

[cherokeeprogressive]

30. Was it also really good that June and July numbers were revised DOWNWARD by 41,000 jobs?

Will it be good in two months when the August number is revised downward as well?

Someone's gotta tell me how the unemployment number can go down .2% when the number of new jobs is WELL BELOW what's necessary just to keep up with population growth.

Tell me how 96,000 new jobs when 125,000+ are necessary to stay even can result in a .2% drop. While doing that, explain how 368,000 giving up their job search is "really good".

[B2G]

31. Agree. If the numbers in the job market were kept static at 2009 levels,

The unemployment rate would be over 11% right now.

That's not good and that's not worth celebrating.

[RainbowOverTexas]

34. which is why

unemployment will skyrocket when Obama gets re-elected, all those who have given up will come back into the workforce with renewed hope. It will be a great sign for the future of the economy but the GOP will pounce all over us claiming doomsday. Hopefully the truth can win out over their propaganda.

[Orangepeel]

33. Job numbers weren't bad

Not too long ago we were losing jobs. That was bad.

I think Krugman said it well:

No News On Jobs
The headline number came in a bit below expectations, but that’s probably just the noisiness in the data. The best hypothesis about the US economy this past year and more is that it has been steadily adding jobs at a pace roughly fast enough to keep up with but not get ahead of population growth. Today’s report was consistent with a continuation of that story. Nothing to see here.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/