The final pre-election Jobs report - and a new spin?

[Pollwatch99]

In addition to the September Jobs report to be released Friday (WSJ estimate is 145,000 - depressed +/- 50,000 or so by the Florida Huricanes) an additional wrinkle is that one years worth of payroll data is also beiong revised by the BLs.

According to the WSJ, there will be an upward revision of something from 288,000 to 384,000 in addition to the new September jobs..

This would give Bush a "number" for this years Job creation to proclaim that would be +/- 400-500K higher.

In reality, this is not a story, in the sense that no 'real" jobs are created - folks who got an underreported job in Dec 2003 still got the job, etc...  But it certainly may have a political impact...


The jobs debate heats up this week, with the White House expecting that revised payroll data to be released Friday will put a shine on President Bush's record of helping the economy create new jobs.

Friday's data will be the last released before the Nov. 2 election. While markets will focus on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' jobs report for September, politicians might pay more attention to revised data for the period from March 2003 through March 2004.

A memo from the president's Council of Economic Advisers estimates that the payroll employment figure for that period could be revised upward by 288,000, and conceivably by as much as 384,000. [/i]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB109693799501436155,00.html?mod=todays%5Ffree%5Ffeature

If that happens, I think it is great particularly the night of the debate. However, the truth is the Commission that set the dates should not have picked a day where major economic data was released particularly unemployment since it's an issue in campaign.  Hope the numbers are strong, otherwise it's a boom-a-rang

[Pollwatch99]

What are people making, is it still $9,000 less than the jobs we lost? 

When slick Willie was running in 1996, 5.4% unemployment was a booming economy.  I'm sure all these people when they got jobs got a hefty raise, sign-on bonus, and a four year guaranteed employment contract.

Give me a break, throughout our history the unemployed when they find jobs usually make less. 

[Pollwatch99]

The strenght of the economy can't just be measured by unemployment.  A lot of people who are employed are underemployed...they are working below a decent living wage, have no job security, no pension, and no health benefits. 

Has anyone done an evaluation of the GINI coefficient of our current economy compared to four years ago?....that would definitely be interesting to see.

And then of course there is that old favorite of conservatives, the stock market.  How is that going for you guys?

It is Kerry who harps on employment rate/jobs. Pass the GINI coefficient of the current economy argument to Kerry for the next debate.

Now you are correct about the underemployed, job security and no benefits.  Now what does that have to do with the President of the US and what public policies does Kerry espouse to fix it?  Raise taxes on income above 200K.  That will also impact small business employers( yes, subchapter S corps are taxed at personal rate).

[Pollwatch99]

The government can't really do anything about private-sector unemployment.  But it can combat underemployment, which has been a bigger problem recently by doing, among other thing:

- Raising the minimum wage
- Increasing welfare and unemployment benefits
- Enacting universal healthcare

To do this, the government will need to raise taxes.  So yes, raising taxes can help the economy.

Raising minimum wage; ok
So let's raise taxes really high, then we can afford to help those people
   who lose their jobs better; no sale that doesn't create jobs.
HillaryCare; no thank you.  Temporary safety net for the uninsured; ok but