JONATHAN COHN SEPTEMBER 2, 2011
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Monthly job losses, graphic by Steve Benen
The August jobs report is out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And it is ugly. Via Neil Irwin of the Washington Post:
Job creation came to a halt in August, according to new government data that show an economic recovery that appears to be puttering out.
The Labor Department on Friday reported zero net job creation in August, far worse than the 68,000 net jobs analysts had expected to be added. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.1 percent. The July job growth number was revised downward, as well, to only 85,000 jobs added that month--not the 117,000 first estimated.
Call it the goose egg economy: The report of zero job growth matches other recent data pointing to a flatlining economy, such as a survey on manufacturing released Thursday, which placed activity right near the line that divides expansion from contraction.
The overall number is slightly misleading, since it counts among the unemployed 45,000 striking Verizon workers who have since returned to work. But most of the underlying data was discouraging, too. Among other things, the average private workweek fell from 34.3 to 34.2 hours.
House Speaker John Boehner and other top Republicans were quick to blame the poor state of the economy on President Obama's economic policies: It's too much spending, the threat of higher taxex, and the uncertainty of future regulations holding back business. This diagnosis continues to defy the wisdom of the majority of mainstream economists, who believe the problem is households with too little money to spend. The uncertainty in the economy, they say, is uncertainty when customers will start buying goods and services again -- although uncertainty about the debt ceiling fight surely didn't help.
Oh, and for the umpteenth time layoffs from government jobs offset the (meager) hirings by the private sector, strengthening the case for direct federal aid to the states.
I'm off for the rest of the day. I'll be back after the weekend, hopefully having thought of new and creative ways to make people believe that we need a big jobs program -- and that we need it now. I'd like to think these numbers would make that task easier, but...
Update: Ezra Klein is absolutely right that this report also strengthens the case for a proposal, by Rep. John Larson, to make job creation part of the super-committee's mandate. The idea hasn't had much traction so far, but maybe these numbers will change that. (And maybe it's the kind of bold move President Obama needs for his speech.)
7 comments
Facts help understand reality. From the recession’s low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month — a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate Just coincidence? More Gov intervention is the last thing we need. One word -- Solyndra
- mr_rationale
September 2, 2011 at 3:21pm
rat Well, if you want to go with correlations without showing causality, how about the Republican takeover and unemployment? Can you point to something the Republican's have done that would help?
- Nusholtz
September 2, 2011 at 4:41pm
five words are needed rat-- you are full of it. Unless Keynesian policies are applied. the Great Recession will continue-- posibly morph into a second Great Depression. BHO will do little-- and Repubs will prevent even that. The only Hail-Mary hope is for a Progressive to challenge BHO--- and more to challenge Repubs and Blue Dog Dems. Even if BHO wins in 2012, he will be able to do next to nothing-- and will propose little to be rejected.
- drofnats1
September 2, 2011 at 9:48pm
Rat sez Solyndra (small potatoes). I say GM (big potatoes.)
- Haole45
September 2, 2011 at 11:33pm
As usual, rat and his ilk love to pick out one single input into a huge, complicated equation and try to isolate that as THE factor. No actual, empirical evidence to support the straw man belief system (religion) whatsoever. Another mistake conservatives are prone to making is to conflate microeconomic analysis with macroeconomics. Certainly the two are related in many respects, but there are many others where they are totally divurgent in assumptions, behavior and conclusions. Truth is economics is a social/behavioral science, not a true hard science like many want to believe. That being said, it is extremely difficult to predict the future much less track back to the cause using aggregate trends.
- desertdog
September 3, 2011 at 6:02pm
Yep, desertdog. In the social/behavioral sciences, the true experiment is generally impossible. So despite all the models, formulae, graphs, statistics, etc it is not a science in the sense that, say, physics is. Big potatoes do outweigh small potatoes, though, as a rule. So to take some minor case where government intervention didn't work out too well (Solyndra), and use it to prove that such intervention is generally ineffectual, in the the face of evidence that it has been shown in a very important recent case to have been successful (GM), is bone-headed, to say the least.
- Haole45
September 4, 2011 at 12:29am
Yikes! The weekly jobs report, out today, is a genuine, not virtual, goose egg. +17k private sector -17k public.
- Tgossard
September 6, 2011 at 4:28pm