The Aftershock: The Jobs Report on Friday

[Politico]

Strip away the spin, the fear, the smear, the blame, and you are left with the bottom-line: The jobs report on Friday will show that job growth has failed to keep pace with population growth for almost half a decade. We cannot have a real recovery until we create real job growth.

After this debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that being likeable is not good enough when somebody is in over their head. Obama is a nice guy, but he needs to swallow his pride and take responsibility for at least the last two years. He does not want to do that because deep, down inside he knows that we cannot have four more years of the last four years.

Romney will right the ship. Romney will produce the right results. Romney is ready.

[King]

Strip away the spin, the fear, the smear, and you are left with the bottom-line: The jobs report on Friday will almost surely show that job growth has failed to keep pace with population growth for the last half decade. We cannot have a real recovery until we create job growth.

After this debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that being likeable is not good enough when somebody is in over their head. We cannot have four more years of the last four years.

Romney will right the ship, and produce the right results.

That's one hell of a jobs report.  Hopefully they bring in Patrick Stewart to do a dramatic reading.

[J. J.]

Strip away the spin, the fear, the smear, and you are left with the bottom-line: The jobs report on Friday will almost surely show that job growth has failed to keep pace with population growth for the last half decade. We cannot have a real recovery until we create job growth.

After this debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that being likeable is not good enough when somebody is in over their head. We cannot have four more years of the last four years.

Romney will right the ship, and produce the right results.

That's one hell of a jobs report.  Hopefully they bring in Patrick Stewart to do a dramatic reading.

If there is a loss of employed persons, that could be fatal to Obama's reelection.  So could an increase in the unemployment rate.  However, it would not be a half decade of decline, only about 4 1/2 years.

[Skill and Chance]

Strip away the spin, the fear, the smear, and you are left with the bottom-line: The jobs report on Friday will almost surely show that job growth has failed to keep pace with population growth for the last half decade. We cannot have a real recovery until we create job growth.

After this debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that being likeable is not good enough when somebody is in over their head. We cannot have four more years of the last four years.

Romney will right the ship, and produce the right results.

That's one hell of a jobs report.  Hopefully they bring in Patrick Stewart to do a dramatic reading.

If there is a loss of employed persons, that could be fatal to Obama's reelection.  So could an increase in the unemployment rate.  However, it would not be a half decade of decline, only about 4 1/2 years.

I agree that net job losses in September (negative jobs growth) would be a game changer.  Is that what you mean?  I can't see anything short of that changing things, though.

The important thing to remember is that people's perceptions of the economy are relative.  In 1935, for example, any detectable growth at all was something to celebrate...

[Mister Twister]

Basically, Obamas campaign is on life support after the debate. The jobs report is like walking into the hospital and waling on the patient on life-support with a sledgehammer

[tmthforu94]

You guys are going to make us (Romney supporters) look really silly when a few days from now, Obama still leads nationwide.

[Politico]

Strip away the spin, the fear, the smear, and you are left with the bottom-line: The jobs report on Friday will almost surely show that job growth has failed to keep pace with population growth for the last half decade. We cannot have a real recovery until we create job growth.

After this debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that being likeable is not good enough when somebody is in over their head. We cannot have four more years of the last four years.

Romney will right the ship, and produce the right results.

That's one hell of a jobs report.  Hopefully they bring in Patrick Stewart to do a dramatic reading.

If there is a loss of employed persons, that could be fatal to Obama's reelection.  So could an increase in the unemployment rate.  However, it would not be a half decade of decline, only about 4 1/2 years.

I agree that net job losses in September (negative jobs growth) would be a game changer.  Is that what you mean?  I can't see anything short of that changing things, though.

No. Each month, people enter the working age population. If job growth does not outpace population growth, we do not see real job growth. We have not seen this happen in nearly half a decade.

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The important thing to remember is that Romney has his [Inks] together while Obama does not even seem interested in being president anymore...

[Politico]

You guys are going to make us (Romney supporters) look really silly when a few days from now, Obama still leads nationwide.

Cheer up. Tonight was the grand slam we've planned for, and it's going to be a back-to-back grand slam if the jobs report is below 100,000 (and no matter what, the jobs report will not help Obama).

[Skill and Chance]

You guys are going to make us (Romney supporters) look really silly when a few days from now, Obama still leads nationwide.

A statistical tie looks most likely.  That would mean everyone on both sides is reading too much into this.

[Alcon]

Obama had a soggy debate performance, and Romney looked human and engaging tonight.  Obama didn't actually have any gaffes, though, so the news media is going to get bored of this fairly fast.  Romney gets a "resurgence?" news cycle which, coupled with continued mediocre economic news, could let him retake the lead.  I don't think that's probable and talk of Obama's campaign being on "life support" is patently ridiculous.  I know this is part of the fun of the horse-race, but please.

You guys are going to make us (Romney supporters) look really silly when a few days from now, Obama still leads nationwide.

A statistical tie looks most likely.  That would mean everyone on both sides is reading too much into this.

? "Statistical tie"?

[Beet]

Over 5 million private sector jobs have been created since February 2010; that's faster than population growth. Since the Bush recession ended, private sector job creation has been happening much faster than population growth.

[Mister Twister]

You guys are going to make us (Romney supporters) look really silly when a few days from now, Obama still leads nationwide.

Cheer up. Tonight was the grand slam we've planned for, and it's going to be a back-to-back grand slam if the jobs report is below 100,000 (and no matter what, the jobs report will not help Obama).

What if the jobs report is over 1,000,000?

[Skill and Chance]

Obama had a soggy debate performance, and Romney looked human and engaging tonight.  Obama didn't actually have any gaffes, though, so the news media is going to get bored of this fairly fast.  Romney gets a "resurgence?" news cycle which, coupled with continued mediocre economic news, could let him retake the lead.  I don't think that's probable and talk of Obama's campaign being on "life support" is patently ridiculous.  I know this is part of the fun of the horse-race, but please.

You guys are going to make us (Romney supporters) look really silly when a few days from now, Obama still leads nationwide.

A statistical tie looks most likely.  That would mean everyone on both sides is reading too much into this.

? "Statistical tie"?

1-2% Romney bump = statistical tie nationally

[Wisconsin+17]

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Given that the 'Bush recession' is still ongoing, this is meaningless. Also, why then is workforce participation at a 30 year low?

[Beet]

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Given that the 'Bush recession' is still ongoing, this is meaningless. Also, why then is workforce participation at a 30 year low?

See here for the answer to your workforce participatoin question.

Officially, the recession ended in June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, which dates recessions. Regardless, the job numbers from February 2010 to now are the same, and likely underestimated.

[Skill and Chance]

You guys are going to make us (Romney supporters) look really silly when a few days from now, Obama still leads nationwide.

Cheer up. Tonight was the grand slam we've planned for, and it's going to be a back-to-back grand slam if the jobs report is below 100,000 (and no matter what, the jobs report will not help Obama).

What if the jobs report is over 1,000,000?

It would be dismissed as data manipulation.  In all seriousness, though, the last time +1M actually happened there was a negative number reported for the preceding month.

[Alcon]

Obama had a soggy debate performance, and Romney looked human and engaging tonight.  Obama didn't actually have any gaffes, though, so the news media is going to get bored of this fairly fast.  Romney gets a "resurgence?" news cycle which, coupled with continued mediocre economic news, could let him retake the lead.  I don't think that's probable and talk of Obama's campaign being on "life support" is patently ridiculous.  I know this is part of the fun of the horse-race, but please.

You guys are going to make us (Romney supporters) look really silly when a few days from now, Obama still leads nationwide.

A statistical tie looks most likely.  That would mean everyone on both sides is reading too much into this.

? "Statistical tie"?

1-2% Romney bump = statistical tie nationally

This is kind of nitpicky, but:

1. "Statistical tie" is a meaningless phrase.  Just because something is within the Margin of Error doesn't mean a race is "tied," statistically or otherwise; it is likelier that one candidate is ahead than the other, sometimes by a lot.

2. Considering we have multiple large-sample polls going here, I doubt a 1-2% Romney bump would be within the MoE anyway.

[Wisconsin+17]

Beet:

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I presume you mean this?

Workforce participation for those 55+ has actually increased since 2008. The bulk of the decline is hitting young people from 25-45, those who've already finished their education. Men, moreso than women.

I agree that the longterm secular decline will eventually kick in, but that's not what we are seeing here. It's not the folks retiring that are driving down workforce participation - it's the young people that are not able to find work.

This, combined with the upcoming secular decline - is a disaster.

[Wisconsin+17]

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And who was president then?

[Beet]

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And who was president then?

Obama was President when the recession ended.

[Beet]

Beet:

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I presume you mean this?

Workforce participation for those 55+ has actually increased since 2008. The bulk of the decline is hitting young people from 25-45, those who've already finished their education. Men, moreso than women.

I agree that the longterm secular decline will eventually kick in, but that's not what we are seeing here. It's not the folks retiring that are driving down workforce participation - it's the young people that are not able to find work.

This, combined with the upcoming secular decline - is a disaster.

I mean the whole discussion, which includes your point about the 55+ and my counter-point.

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Great argument, except for the fact that people 55+ have actually seen their workforce participation increase.

I'm aware of that (and it's yet another trend that has both secular and cyclical components)- but it doesn't contradict the notion that changes in workforce participation can't be used as a proxy for job availability or the economic cycle, or any of the other factors I pointed out. If anything, it reinforces the absurdity of it-- 65+ have always had much lower workforce participation rates than under 65's, but no one would have called that a crisis. Nor does the fact that more 65+ are joining the workforce mean they are better off. It depends on why they're doing it. If they're doing it based on need, then rising workforce participation is actually a bad sign.
[/quote]

I appreciate having the exact same discussion (which you apparently don't remember) again. I really do.

Secular decline has been going on for decades-- including among men age 25-45. Workforce participation among that group has been falling since the 1960's.

[Wisconsin+17]

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That's what happens when you handwave arguments you don't like away.

That 55+ is increasing in workforce participation blows your argument out of the water. The long-term formerly unemployed, out of the workforce population (around 5 percent or so), aren't likely to ever get back in.

I'm sure 5 percent doesn't sound like much to you - but it's huge. Getting that 5 percent working was a major part as to why the boom of the 80s and 90s happened. We're back to the 70s and only about 2 or 3 percent over 1950. If we go back another 5 or so, we'll be back to where things were after the second world war.

It's possible, and if you see it happen, we could even see less than half of the population engaged in productive work. Which is going to fuel the oncoming deflationary depression that's just started.

[Beet]

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How? Your argument seems to be that low workforce participation is either (a) inherently bad, or (b) a measure of how bad the economy is. I refuted that by pointing out that (a) workforce participation is a matter of choice and not inherently good or bad, and that (b) workforce participation can change in ways independently of how the economy is doing. That responds to either of your two possible points. To provide evidence for (b), I pointed to evidence that there have been secular declines in workforce participation among most groups.

Yes, there has also been a secular upswing of workforce participation among those 55+. That, too, is compatible with my overall point that this statistic is affected by secular factors independent of the business cycle or the state of the economy. Of course, the upswing among those 55+ is outweighed by the downswing among all the other groups, plus the mere fact that the population is growing older and older people are less likely to participate. But that is peripheral to my point.

There are two separate arguments there-- one among the connection between participation rates and the job market, and whether one can really be a proxy for the other, and the other about why the direction of participation rates are going one way or the other. I explain both. But workforce participation could easily be rising and that would not necessarily be a good or bad sign either. It's independent of the job market, and subject to conflicting economic interpretations. For example, rising workforce participation could be seen as a sign that more people are encouraged to look for jobs, but it could also be seen as a sign that more people are desperate for money. Falling workforce participation is subject to opposite interpretations.

Also, see this article by Bill McBride -- the recent trends in this statistic largely could have been expected, even without the recession.

Here are workforce participation numbers for men, aged 25-34, and 35-55, since 1970:
25-34      35-44

96.5   1970   96.9
95.2   1980   95.5
94.1   1990   94.3
93.4   2000   92.7
91.7   2005   92.1
89.7   2010   91.5

[Beet]

I'm sure 5 percent doesn't sound like much to you - but it's huge. Getting that 5 percent working was a major part as to why the boom of the 80s and 90s happened. We're back to the 70s and only about 2 or 3 percent over 1950. If we go back another 5 or so, we'll be back to where things were after the second world war.

Labor force participation isn't what determines economic well-being. If you produce more only by working harder, then you've essentially traded off goods for leisure. It's up to individual Americans to freely determine the best trade-off for them. It's not for your or me to tell them that they're better off working. Many people who don't formally participate in the labor force nonetheless do good, necessary things. Stay-at-home moms, for instance, can provide better care for their children than a disinterested and low-paid child care worker. Students, whether young or adult, can educate themselves and gain skills to be more productive later in life. Volunteering can provide valuable services to the community, and so on.

What determines economic well-being is productivity; or how much you can produce in terms of value from a given amount of work. If you asked people in ancient Egypt at the time of the Pyraminds what the labor force participation rate was, you probably would have gotten near 100%. But those people lived at a bare subsistence level. Increased productivity is what led to the industrial revolution, and what all growth, in the end, is based on. It is largely the result of market competition, with government assistance.

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If you oppose deflation, you should be an economic Keynesian.

[Politico]

Obama had a soggy debate performance, and Romney looked human and engaging tonight.  Obama didn't actually have any gaffes, though, so the news media is going to get bored of this fairly fast.

Like Gore in 2000, Obama had a non-obvious gaffe: The constant smirks at audience members, and his body language that said, "I'M NOT REALLY LISTENING TO GOVERNOR ROMNEY"