Promises, Promises Sources: Bureau of Labor Studies; Economic Reports of the President, 2002, 2003 and 2004. By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: March 9, 2004 Despite a string of dismal employment reports, the administration insists that its economic program, which has relied entirely on tax cuts focused on the affluent, will produce big job gains any day now. Should we believe these promises? Each February, the Economic Report of the President forecasts nonfarm payroll employment — generally considered the best measure of job growth — for the next several years. The black line in the chart above (inspired by a joint report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) shows the actual performance of employment, both before and after its peak in March 2001. The gray lines show the forecasts in the 2002, 2003 and 2004 reports. Notice that the February 2004 forecast, which, as in previous years, is based on data only through the preceding October, is already 900,000 jobs too high. Economic forecasting isn't an exact science, but wishful thinking on this scale is unprecedented. Nor can the administration use its all-purpose excuse: all of these forecasts date from after 9/11. What you see in this chart is the signature of a corrupted policy process, in which political propaganda takes the place of professional analysis
Can you believe that Frank Billingsley? He forcasted for the rain to stop last wednesday and it rained all the way through Thursday night. What an incompetent fool.
nice try at dismissing the issue and pretending that forcasting huge job growth (and basing fiscal policy from those predictions) and never realizing those gains is irrelevant
Can you believe that Frank Billingsley? He forcasted for the rain to stop last wednesday and it rained all the way through Thursday night. What an incompetent fool. And if he was consistently wrong with every prediction, he'd be fired because he adds no value to the news.
This short term job growth, or lack of it, has little to do with the current administration. If you look past the surface data you have several long term underlying problems that are going to trouble the United States for many years to come - regardless of party affiliation of the president. A large part of the problem is that worker producitvity is at historically high numbers (sure, blame this on the administration too). In my opinion, this is due to a number of things including vastly superior systems (software, machinary, etc). I worked as a software consultant for several years and implimented many enterprise systems whose sole purpose was to eliminate redundant data entry, make things easier to get to, and generate reports that use to take dozens of man hours to generate. The people who use to do what these systems are now doing were repositioned to other jobs. When jobs were lost over the past couple years, employers soon realized they dont need to rehire as many people as were in those positions. Basically what I am saying is to get from point A to point B now, you dont need as many people as you did 10 years ago. And it took a cyclical job loss to make the problem visible. jobs moving overseas has gone on for many years and has little to do with current unemployment numbers. But prior to the last 10 years of technology growth, there have been few systems to replace employers like we are seeing today
rvolkin, I agree with your first statement if you mean that administrations in general have relatively limited sway over unemployment. As for the rest, be careful, No Worries has a big bucket of water over your head.
So in other words- When an Administration proposes and implements an economic plan in which the main focus is job creation and the jobs are not created, they should not be held accountable.
This short term job growth, or lack of it, has little to do with the current administration. If you look past the surface data you have several long term underlying problems that are going to trouble the United States for many years to come - regardless of party affiliation of the president. Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that Bush has been completely wrong (and not "slightly" wrong) on every one of his predictions. That gives us no reason whatsoever to trust any of his future predictions or economic plans. That's the message here.
Replace the word "main" with the words "long term" and I will agree with you. There are very few buttons the President can push that will create jobs this year. The inaccurate forecasting is seperate issue from the President being able to manufacture jobs in the short term.
There are very few buttons the President can push that will create jobs this year. So are you saying the President is a liar or incompetent? Because he argued vehemently in pushing his plan that it would create 3 million jobs over 2 years.
I think he is referring to the century or so PRIOR to the last 10 years in which many, many machines and/or systems were created that took the place of workers. The mechanization of the auto industry in the 80s alone took tens of thousands off of productions lines. He is saying that you need to look at history. I would further point out that even with those mechanization improvements in the 80s, there was still a net jobs gain in every single administration up until now.
Did the Bush administration say the were "long term" projections? The inaccurate forecasting is THE issue of this thread. Can you understand why this is important? The Bush Administration pushed through HUGE tax cuts to the rich by claiming that they would help everyone by creating millions of jobs. His critics said the tax cuts might create some jobs but that the Bush plan was not the most effective way to accomplish this. And furthermore the tax cuts would cause the deficit to balloon therefore this job creation plan was not worth the price. Who was right?
Of course there are isolated industries that have experienced automation that replaced jobs at many times in history. What we have experienced in the last ten years is a wholesale automation across ALL industries - and at a much faster rate. Look at the transformation in the bast ten years of industries such as banking, retail, transportation, accounting, communication, etc. As an example that I can relate to recently is mortgates. I refinanced within the past year and was talkign to the mortgage broker about their business. They have 4 employees doing what use to take 12+ because of the software they are using. This doesnt even count the employees that arent longer necessary on the back end of those deals. Look at the worker productivity numbers - they tell a better story then I can.
It's a good point, and we should be proud here, doing what we can to take a bite outta worker productivity.
