i'm sure everyone will try and spin this their way, but the net is 144k jobs were added last month, which is good news. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5905328/ -- Hiring picked up in August U.S. firms added 144,000 workers, jobless rate slips The Associated Press WASHINGTON - America’s payrolls picked up in August, with the economy adding 144,000 jobs, slightly less than economists were forecasting and highlighting the slow and uneven recovery in the labor market that jobseekers have braved. The unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 percent last month from 5.5 percent in July. But the drop in the jobless rate in August came as people left the work force for any number of reasons, the Labor Department reported Friday. Economists were predicting the jobless rate to hold steady in August. The gain in payrolls was short of the 150,000 net jobs that economists were calling for. However, it represented the biggest jobs gain since May and marked the 12th month in a row that payrolls grew. Job gains for July were revised up to 73,000, still a lackluster number but an improvement from the 32,000 advance first estimated. Payrolls for June also were revised up to show a larger gain than first reported. The latest snapshot of the jobs climate comes just two months before the presidential election. President Bush, who hurried back to the campaign trail after accepting the Republican party’s nomination for a second term Thursday, and his Democratic rival, John Kerry, joust frequently over the health of the economy and the availability of jobs. Bush says his tax cuts have helped the economy rebound and that making those tax cuts permanent will spur more job creation. Kerry contends Bush’s policies benefit the wealthy, squeeze the middle class and aren’t producing significant job growth. The economy has lost 913,000 jobs since Bush took office. The payrolls figure and the unemployment rate can sometimes go in different directions because they are derived from two separate statistical surveys. The unemployment rate is calculated from a survey of around 60,000 households in which people are asked to state whether they have jobs or are looking for work. The unemployment rate in August fell as the labor force shrank by 152,000 from the previous month. The survey used to calculate the payroll figure — seen as a better barometer of the labor market’s health by many economist — is based on information from about 160,000 businesses and government agencies, covering roughly 400,000 individual work sites. The Labor Department said that Hurricane Charley, which tore through Florida on Aug. 13 — the week both surveys were conducted — had no discernible impact on the numbers. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had said that the economy hit a “soft patch” in June. However, he and his Fed colleagues expressed confidence last month that economic activity would pick up. In August retail and automobile sales came in sluggish, consumer confidence dropped and manufacturing activity grew at a slower pace. The Federal Reserve, in a bid to keep inflation from becoming a problem, boosted short-term interest rates twice this year. That has left a key rate controlled by the Fed at 1.50 percent, still low by historical standards. The Fed’s next meeting is Sept. 21. Some economists believe the Fed will push rates by another one-quarter percentage point at that time. Economists want to see at least 200,000 net jobs added a month on a consistent basis before declaring the labor market fully healed.
that's good, just as long as they are full-time paying jobs. Despite our downfalls in the last three years, if anything improves in the next two months, its going to really help the Bush machine.
Sadly this isn't really a help. I was listening to NPR this morning and they were saying to keep up with the amount of people who want to work there needs to be at least 150,000 jobs created a month.
Yep, you need 150,000 jobs just to keep up with population growth. College grads these days are so screwed. You pay 40K to go to UT and then you go out and find out there are no jobs except for <$12 ones that barely allow you pay for your school loans and rent.
NPR! Ridiculous! They hate America! Liberals! Fresh Air with Terry Gross sucks! Car Talk is communist! Waah!
More data, read what you would like into it... or not. The number of persons who were marginally attached to the labor force was 1.6 million in August, about the same as a year earlier. These individuals wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed, however, because they did not actively search for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. There were 534,000 discouraged workers in August, also about the same as a year earlier. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them. The other 1.1 million marginally attached had not searched for work for reasons such as school or family responsibilities. Bureau of Labor Statistics
You partisan wanker/hata ... [Edit: ] The economy has lost 913,000 jobs since Bush took office. 2 months, 913,000 jobs to create. Move over Hoover, here comes W.
Here is your truth detector!!! Establishment Survey (W-2 payroll employment) Total employment as of December 2000 = 131.878 million Total employment as of August 2004 = 131.475 million Household Survey (W-2 employment, 1099 contractors, self-employment, etc.) Total employment as of December 2000 = 135.836 million Total employment as of August 2004 = 139.681 million
does anyone remember the President telling us that these tax cuts would create jobs? The last tax cut, called the "Jobs and Growth Plan." was supposed to create "5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004—306,000 new jobs each month starting in July 2003 ... it projected that 3,978,000 jobs would be created over the last 13 months. In reality, since the tax cuts took effect, there are 2,565,000 fewer jobs than the administration projected would be created by enactment of its tax cuts." Yeah, lets re-elect this guy, his policies work! http://www.jobwatch.org/creating/index.html http://jobwatch.org/creating/bkg/cea_on_bush_tax_cuts_20030204_macro_effects.pdf
Nobody ever said the tax cuts wouldn't create jobs as some right wing nut jobs would have you believe. Almost all tax cuts create jobs. The critisism was at how effective it would be and at what cost. Over a trillion dollars in further debt and little job growth, I would conclude that the critics were right.
Your forgetting the numbers on those W2's... Median Household Income 2000 $44,853 2003 $43,318 Change Under Bush -$1,535 (-3.4%) fact check
Which is awesome considering nearly 3 years ago we were attacked on our soil, 1) sending the airline industry (which affects all travel, motels, catering, food service industry, terminal vendors, etc.) into an economic tailspin - 2) caused literal destruction and total wipe-out of some brokerage firms (which had ripple effect throughout the world's market) - 3) sent insurance companies into overload trying to cover the damage and rebuilding process (which effected every other area of insurance and the industries directly connected to it)... There were other areas affected that I'm not listing. I think the country has down very well all things considered. You all just keep denying that 9/11 really had an actual effect on our country. I choose to see the way things are.
And they probably think what just happened in Russia could never happen over here. That should be another wake up call for us. We spend so much time trying to make our airports safe that we forget about everything else.
Had Bush chosen to pursue a diplomatic solution in Iraq, we could AFFORD to make our daily lives safer rather than chasing phantom WMDs and 25 year old genocides.
