There were rumors before Bush’s speech that the job creation statistics for August would be weak and that was why the economy hadn’t figured much into the RNC before Thursday.
Looks like that wasn’t the case at all.
The Department of Labor said the economy created 144,000 jobs in August, up from a revised 73,000 jobs in a weak July report. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast 150,000 new jobs.
The unemployment rate improved to 5.4 from 5.5 percent in July. Forecasts were for the unemployment rate to hold steady. The drop was primarily due to a 152,000 decline in the estimate of the size of overall labor force. The increase in jobs in the household survey used to calculate unemployment was a relatively modest 21,000.
Better yet, the weak numbers from the last two months have been revised upwards:
The larger job growth estimate came from a more closely followed survey of employers. It was at its strongest point since May, and the report included improvements to the weak reports of June and July. June job growth was revised to a gain of 96,000 jobs from an earlier reading of 78,000, while July was revised from an earlier reading of 32,000.
The jump from 73,000 from 32,000 is one hell of a jump – over double. While that figure still isn’t great, it isn’t bad either. The job growth in the last year has been strong, directly due to Bush’s pro-growth tax cuts and increasing economic confidence. Kerry is banking on people being worried about the economy – but the numbers show growth. People aren’t going to trade a recovery for something different, especially when Kerry’s spending and tax policies would ensure that we’d end up on the losing side of the jobs equation. Bush has one more employment survey before Election Day – if things continue to improve John Kerry’s doom and gloom rhetoric may not have much appeal with voters who have every reason to feel confident in a stronger economy.
We’ll see. 144,000 is still not very impressive, and if recent history is any indication, the new jobs are unlikely to be the kind of employment that will make grateful new hires fall to their knees in praise of Bush tax cuts. In fact, the only people likely to take most of the new jobs created by the Bush administration are the very “lucky duckies” too poor to pay income taxes. Perhaps I’m cynical, but I can’t see to many former Timken workers who received one of this year’s new jobs paying an average $8.40 per hour are likely to reward Bush for his masterful economic stewardship.
Of course, the perception of a job market rebound does have tremendous potential in helping Bush among the 95% of Americans who are employed and whose conscience may be cleared in hearing of job creation. It’s these voters who John Kerry has to appeal to by citing in no uncertain terms that the new jobs pay substantially less than the 3 million jobs erased since 2000, and that more than a fifth of the new jobs were at temp agencies.
I can’t see how Bush has any chance of winning running on the economy. He’s better off sticking to what he does best….invoking 9-11 memories and peddling paranoia. He has a good shot at winning the election based on that, and has nowhere to go but down reminding Americans of just how devastating his domestic policies have been.
Ah, the same old talking points easily refuted. As the BLS notes, the biggest pickups were in health care and financial services. Health care workers make an average $16.18/hour according to the August 2004 survey.
As the BLS also says:
Typical Democratic negativity. Too bad the party of FDR has nothing to see anymore but feat itself today…
Rather than telling me what the average wage is in the industry doing the hiring (you don’t suppose that $500K per year physicians inflate the average wage level in the health care industry, do you?), perhaps you could tell me the average wage of the new jobs this year. The report I saw a few months back showed $8.40 per hour. Can you refute this with facts of your own other than attempting to spin the “average wage of the health care industry” as meaning the newly-hired nurse’s aides are earning $40,000 per year?
Such a figure is worthless. What would be the average of ALL jobs in the country at any given point? You can’t compare the millions of first-time workers getting their first McJob with a computer engineer making $250,000/year. It’s not even comparing apples and oranges, it’s apples and hammers.
The incomes of new jobs are always going to be lower than average because the people who are taking new jobs tend to be new workers. Using such figures is an execise in misleading statistics.
Citing the average wage of the new jobs Bush created as opposed to the old jobs he erased are “worthless”? That might be an interest soundbyte for Bush to test drive on his next campaign tour through Canton, Ohio. The only exercise in misleading statistics going on in this thread involves the suggestion that because the median wage in the health care industry is $16 an hour, the average wage of NEW jobs in the health care industry is the same.
This is fantastic news…
Consider this as well:
Real after-tax incomes are up by 10% since December 2000 – substantially better than the gains following the last recession.
Also, the national homeownership rate, in the second quarter of 2004, was at an all time high of 69.2 percent.
And home values have risen considerably.
So people have gotten wealthier not only through wage gains, but through tax cuts, as well as greater valuation of their homes.
Bush has an amazing record on the economy. Unfortunately, liberals and the liberal media want to make him and us feel bad about it.
Considering that Bush inherited a recession, that Bush inherited a huge terrorist problem that culminated in 9-11, that Bush inherited a corporate fraud problem, it’s amazing that we have an economy at all. Who in the days following 9-11 would have dreamed the economy would be this good this soon? Shoot, after 9-11, we assumed we’d have experienced another terrorist attack on our soil by now.
The Dems want everyone to evaluate the economy as if 9-11 never happened…in fact, they want people to evaluate Bush and his record as a whole as if 9-11 never happened. Immediately after 9-11, the economy lost about one million jobs through this one development alone. Since Bush’s policies have kicked in, the economy has been on a steady upward climb and has added net jobs substantially.
My suggestion to everyone: Let’s talk up the economy, and counter the negativity of the liberals and the media.
When I see the homeownership stats, I wonder how many of those were purchased due to low interest rates. Did Bush effect low interest rates? No, that was the Fed board.
How much effect does a president have on the economy. It has been said before that the more we try to effect the health of an economy the more we hurt it. Capitalism and supply and demand economics resists such manipulation. I think buyers and sellers have more effect on an economy than a president.
Chris: you do bring up a good point: even though we are in a market economy we often judge the president as if he were this grand manipulator of the entire economy..almost as if he God.
What a president and a government can do is get out of the way of a free market economy and create the best conditions for growth, by, among other things, allowing people to keep more of their money through tax cuts, not over-regulating, and producing a climate of basic security. On those notes, Bush deserves great credit.
I mean, who after 9-11 would have thought that in less than 3 years we would have the Dow above 10,000, have unemployment at 5.4%, have record home ownership, etc? After 9-11, we thought we would have had another catastrophic terrorist attack on our soil…and of course, that would have been disastrous on our economy. Overall, things are going quite well, and the president deserves great applause for keeping this country safe and allowing our market economy to work…
Real after-tax incomes are up by 10% since December 2000
Whose incomes?
Considering that Bush inherited a recession
Now that’s just not true. The recession didn’t really start until March, two months after Bush was inaugurated.
Since Bush’s policies have kicked in, the economy has been on a steady upward climb and has added net jobs substantially.
No, net jobs are still a loss.
The recession didn’t really start until March, two months after Bush was inaugurated.
Response:
Clinton’s Chairman Of Council Of Economic Advisors, Joseph Stiglitz, Said Recession Started During Clinton’s Tenure. “It would be nice for us veterans of the Clinton Administration if we could simply blame mismanagement by President George W. Bush’s economic team for this seemingly sudden turnaround in the economy, which coincided so closely with its taking charge. But … the economy was slipping into recession even before Bush took office, and the corporate scandals that are rocking America began much earlier.” (Joseph Stiglitz, “The Roaring Nineties,” The Atlantic Monthly, 10/02)
Stiglitz Discredited Democrats’ Claim That Bush Administration Is Responsible For Recession. Stiglitz noted that during the Clinton Administration “the groundwork for some of the problems we are now experiencing was being laid. Accounting standards slipped; deregulation was taken further than it should have been; and corporate greed was pandered to ….” (Joseph Stiglitz, “The Roaring Nineties,” The Atlantic Monthly, 10/02)
But it really doesn’t matter…even if the recession started two months into Bush’s term, Bush cannot be blamed for that. Anyone familiar with macroeconomics knows it takes time for any policy to have effect…plus, Bush’s first budget wasn’t even passed until October of 2001…the fact is that the economy in Mar of 2001 was still the Clinton economy…that is the only thing macroeconomically possible…it’s not like Bush takes office, and magically his policies start and the economy reacts….
And since the Bush economic policies have taken effect, which would be starting in 2002 and really kicking in 2003, there has been a net jobs gain…
Again, the libs pretend 9-11 never happened, pretend there is no macroeconomic lag time for policies to have impact, pretend there is no finite amount of time for policies to become law…
9-11 alone was responsible for one million jobs lost in the months immediately thereafter…and that’s not counting lingering effects on the travel industry…
From a macroeconomic perspective, in an economy our size, it can take several months to over a year to even a few years for any policy to have impact. The full effects of Bush’s policies (his tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2002) were not fully seen until mid 2003…and that is when the economy really took off…
The economy has added about 1.7 million new jobs since August of 2003…that is amazing.
Again, in the days after 9-11, did anyone think we would have the Dow Jones above 10,000 again, and unemployment at 5.4%? I don’t think anyone would have taken the odds on that one…people didn’t even think we’d gone this long without another terrorist attack on our soil…
Bush is a fantastic president…4 more years…4 more years…
I think that it’s funny that the two articles you cited to disprove me both assert that Republican strategies like deregulation were responsible for the recession.
Certainly Bush did nothing to change those policies, or to discourage lax accounting.
But it really doesn’t matter…even if the recession started two months into Bush’s term, Bush cannot be blamed for that.
All I know is, no Republican administration has overseen the creation of more jobs than the worst performing Democrat (Carter) in the last half-century or so. All I know is, business expansion is greater and of longer duration during Democratic control, and business decline is greater and of longer duration during Republican control.
And since the Bush economic policies have taken effect, which would be starting in 2002 and really kicking in 2003, there has been a net jobs gain…
No, AT, Bush’s administration has still seen a net job loss. They haven’t gained as many jobs as they’ve lost. That’s a net loss.
Bush is a fantastic president…
More Americans in poverty? The largest increase in health insurance premiums ever? Enormous budget overruns? Drastic wartime miscaluclations?
You have a funny definition of “fantastic”, I guess. He’s been a failure at everything he’s laid his hand to, except hoodwinking the American people.