The truth behind today’s federal jobs report, my dear Save Jerseyans, is buried at the bottom of the Associated Press’s story:
Still, many of the jobs the economy added last month were part time. The number of people with part-time jobs who wanted full-time work rose 7.5 percent to 8.6 million. “
Translation: people who used to be engineers at salaried positions, 40 hours weekly are now flipping burgers for 25 hours every week. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are still quitting the job hunt altogether after months (or in many cases years) without any success. How is that a success, Obama supporters?
Moreover, this report is unambiguously NOT good news for those of us who can add and substract. We can debate gay marriage all day long… this is a dollars and cents discussion. No room for interpretation!
Repeat after me, Save Jerseyans:
…our U.S. economy needs to produce approximately 120,000 new jobs every month just to keep pace with population growth.”
Real unemployment — including the underemployed and those who have simply stopped looking for work — was around 15% last month. The fact that employers added 114,000 jobs in September is woefully unhelpful because, again, we live in a (1) growing country with (2) millions who are already unemployed. Hence, logicially, you need more than replacement-level job growth to dig out of the hole.
Other modern presidents who inherited recessions did a MUCH better job digging out. Forgive me for quoting an old post one last time:
Though President Obama inherited a recession, he is currently averaging just 0.84% job growth annually. Ronald Reagan averaged +1.75% in his first term and Bill Clinton averaged 2.60%! Only three states (all small and red) have a “U-6″ or “real” unemployment rate today under 10%. And having netted only a few hundred thousand jobs over the past few years (approximately 300k), the U.S. economy isn’t generating anywhere CLOSE to the number of new jobs required to (1) replace those that were lost and (2) provide for population growth. The sad truth regarding the President’s plan to create 1 million new manufacturing jobs? Even if he pulled it off, again, that’s not nearly enough to make up our current jobs deficit…
Don’t be fooled, folks. Jack Welch gets it. November is coming. SHARE THE TRUTH!
Does being paid to wait in line for an iPhone count as a job?