Will Friday's job numbers help Obama recover?

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

They will only have an effect if they are much poorer than expected. The slowing in growth hasn't made many headlines either.

[J. J.]

They will only have an effect if they are much poorer than expected. The slowing in growth hasn't made many headlines either.

CNN will be covering it extensively.

There are two elements, unemployment rate and the actual number of employed people.  If both are static, it is very bad news for Obama.  He will be going into the election with higher unemployment numbers than any president since 1948; that is almost a given.  If the number of actual jobs drops or shows an anemic increase (90 K or less), Obama will be the first president since either FDR or Hoover that has had a loss of jobs prior to the election.  He probably could not survive that.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

ADP reported their numbers yesterday, which had private employment increasing by 162,000 in September.  As a result I would be shocked if the BLS numbers released tomorrow are not a six-figure number beginning with "1", so I expect tomorrow's job report to have no effect.  It will need to be <100,000 to help Romney and ≥ 200,000 to help Obama.  Even then the effect would be slight.

[they don't love you like i love you]

It's rather funny reading Politico's ravings about how bad the job market is while I sit at work at the beginning of an OT-boosted 12 hour shift.

[J. J.]

ADP reported their numbers yesterday, which had private employment increasing by 162,000 in September.  As a result I would be shocked if the BLS numbers released tomorrow are not a six-figure number beginning with "1", so I expect tomorrow's job report to have no effect.  It will need to be <100,000 to help Romney and ≥ 200,000 to help Obama.  Even then the effect would be slight.

I think one of the keys will the number of people employed.  Obama needs to have that in positive territory.

[後援会]

The job numbers will be bad and they will be a slight negative for Obama, but it's not going to be a real big deal. His base has already consigned itself to a bad economy and is voting for Obama regardless of such.

[Likely Voter]

I suspect it will be (like the last two months) good news/bad news type of thing and will (like the last two months) have no impact. People feel the economy on a personal basis.  The only impact is if it was hugely good news like 250k jobs unemployment below 8, or hugely bad like unemployment back up to 8.5 and/or net job losses

[Torie]

Oh my god. Please do not get your hopes up for this, guys. The last thing Obama needs right now is over-inflated hopes on one number which is a rough, rough, rough estimate that will get drastically revised 3 times, and then get revised again in six months, then get revised again a year later. Margin of error +/- a couple hundred thousand. It'll likely be a disappointment. The ISM services employment index fell from last month, when only 96,000 jobs were created. So I'm expecting less than 96,000. Remember, Europe is long jobs, Japan is losing jobs, it'll be a miracle at all if we gain jobs.

The main point is that Obama has created over 5 million private sector jobs in the past 2 1/2 years, and has a much better job creation record than George W. Bush in his first term.

How many jobs are normally created after a deep recession over a three year period as a percentage increase, Beet?  And why is growth slowing down, rather than speeding up.  The recovery has been dismal because nobody sees any plan to get us out of the pit of despair. We are a nation suffering from severe anemia.

[stegosaurus]

That depends on how many people give up looking for work, artificially lowering the publicized unemployment rate. The reality is that ~15% of the country is not meeting their employment needs. That is not a winning number. Fortunately for Obama, that is not the number we are arguing over. Why Romney has decided to fight the unemployment debate on U-3 grounds rather than U-6 is beyond me.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

It depends on what it shows.  If the unemployment rate has been decreasing, it is largely because so many people are leaving the workforce.  In my home state of Michigan, our unemployment rate has significantly dropped over the past few years because so many people have stopped working or left the state to find work.  (Sorry, President Obama, it wasn't the auto bailouts, as much as you like to think that it was.)  In fact, Michigan was the only state to lose people in the 2010 Census.

[Franzl]

It depends on what it shows.  If the unemployment rate has been decreasing, it is largely because so many people are leaving the workforce.  In my home state of Michigan, our unemployment rate has significantly dropped over the past few years because so many people have stopped working or left the state to find work.  (Sorry, President Obama, it wasn't the auto bailouts, as much as you like to think that it was.)  In fact, Michigan was the only state to lose people in the 2010 Census.

First reason is valid (leaving the workforce), bur second has nothing to do with the unemployment rate. A rate means...

[Sbane]

Oh my god. Please do not get your hopes up for this, guys. The last thing Obama needs right now is over-inflated hopes on one number which is a rough, rough, rough estimate that will get drastically revised 3 times, and then get revised again in six months, then get revised again a year later. Margin of error +/- a couple hundred thousand. It'll likely be a disappointment. The ISM services employment index fell from last month, when only 96,000 jobs were created. So I'm expecting less than 96,000. Remember, Europe is long jobs, Japan is losing jobs, it'll be a miracle at all if we gain jobs.

The main point is that Obama has created over 5 million private sector jobs in the past 2 1/2 years, and has a much better job creation record than George W. Bush in his first term.

How many jobs are normally created after a deep recession over a three year period as a percentage increase, Beet?  And why is growth slowing down, rather than speeding up.  The recovery has been dismal because nobody sees any plan to get us out of the pit of despair. We are a nation suffering from severe anemia.

No, the world is suffering from severe anemia and we are an otherwise well functioning organ that is getting affected by it. America is doing much better than the rest of the world. Even if you look at China and India, they are doing as bad as during the depths of the 2009 recession and Europe is basically teetering on the edge of recession as well as Japan. We are at least chugging along at 1%+.

And the unemployment numbers have been released. 114k jobs created and surprisingly, the unemployment rate drops to 7.8%. Now let the bitchfest about labor force participation commence.

[Torie]

Yes, it is a plus for Obama. Period.

Is the election now over?  No.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Yep, definitely good news for Obama. I'm very surprised that so few new jobs would lower the rate that much.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Yep, definitely good news for Obama. I'm very surprised that so few new jobs would lower the rate that much.

It's because they've adjusted the numbers for the past several months.