July Job Reports

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
July Job Reports
8
Fri, 08-06-2004 - 11:38am
Guess Bush will have to depend on wedge issues and terror in his stump speeches until the next reports come out......

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5621394/

http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/06/news/economy/jobless_july/index.htm?cnn=yes

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Fri, 08-06-2004 - 11:46am
Technically, it's still ABOVE ZERO.

But it also fell 200,000+ short of expectations. This marks a trend of smaller and smaller rises.

At this pace, the next report will show many more lost. That report will come out on the last day of the GOP convention.

Now, while i wish nothing BUT THE VERY WORST FOR THOSE SLIME THROWING RECORD DUCKING Incumbants, I do not wish to see declining employment in the country.

The economy isn't going to benefit Bush one bit. Despite things looking good for a few months, the public's confidence in his ability to handle the economy is very low.

This goes along with the overall bad impression the press is leaving on Bush, he's getting much the same treatment as Gore got in 2000.

Another benefit of running your mouths instead of the country i guess.

But hey, you reap what you sew.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Fri, 08-06-2004 - 1:52pm
Why am I not surprised? Even if they had gotten better numbers, it wouldn't mean a thing to me.I can see the situtation first hand in the area I live. Last week heard rumors of more layoffs...

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Fri, 08-06-2004 - 1:56pm
A concern is there may be undercounting of new job creation due to changes in the way people work (more from home than before). The Secretary of the Treasury was on Lou Dobbs I think last night and indicated as many as 2 million jobs may have been created if jobs not counted by the current techniques are considered... I'm unsure as to how scientific this is... or how accurate or inaccurate our current system of counting new jobs is... but it is worth considering that there may be an argument that the economy is in alot better shape than the stats imply....
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 12:45pm
I actually was listening to Lawrence Kudlow on Sunday on WABC radio.

He said that there are several different numbers that the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) looks at. One is the payroll numbers which they gather from approx. 400,000 companies, the second was the household employment number which is gathered from about 90,000 homes across the country, and there was a third that escapes me.

Bottom line was that the census was a good month should show a nett gain of 320,000 or more (this was a combined formula which he described on air, which I dont quite remember) and the adjusted number for July was 445,000 (Kudlow said something about 630,000 less 180,000 for something...)

I wish I had a tape recorder because it was pretty interesting, and gave me some more insight to why the new jobs report was not too good, but the unemployment fell from 5.6% to 5.5%.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 12:46pm
Thanks....that was the third thing that Lawrence Kudlow was talking about.

People working from home or self employed..

I guess this figure has been on the severe increase since the dot.com bust in 1999 - 2000.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2003
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 2:09pm
I put this in another post but seems to fit here better.

I believe the unemployment rate of 5.5% doesn't take into account the number of people who are no longer eligible for unemployment and those that have just given up finding a job. So sometimes a decrease in the rate really isn't good news.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 3:38pm
The other thing is that the employment figures do not take into account all of the people who are self-employed, so it may very well be a wash.....who knows. I know that the formula that they use to compute the figure is pretty complex, and it involves a few different things....that is why I wish I remember exactly what Lawrence Kudlow was saying on the radio. It really was pretty interesting, and gave me a new insight into the employment / unemployment numbers game.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 4:20pm
There was a great chart in the paper yesterday that really demonstrated that when the Democrats talk about the amount of jobs lost under Bush, we're not just being dour pessimists. He's really at the bottom of the heap in terms of job's created during his term (he's still in the red, actually.) Only Hoover has worse numbers.

The brief article also makes the point that the amount of jobs added didn't really seem to have much effect on whether the candidate was re-elected. For instance, Carter is fourth overall (10.5 million jobs added), but was still voted out in favor of Reagan, who added half that amount in his first term (5.2 million). And yet Carter is associated with "malaise" and Reagan is the sunshine cowboy. Weird.

Here's the link, then go to where it says "multimedia" on the right, "Chart: Jobs Added or Lost During Each Term"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/08/weekinreview/08MCCL.html

Or for those with no Times subscription:

Bill Clinton (1993-96) +11.6 million jobs

Bill Clinton (1997-00) +11.4

Ronald Reagan (1985-88) +10.8

Jimmy Carter (1977-80) +10.5

Lyndon B. Johnson (1965-68) +9.8

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941-44) +7.7

Richard M. Nixon (1969-72) +6.0

John F. Kennedy / Johnson (1961-64) +5.7

Roosevelt (1933-36) +5.5

Nixon / Gerald R. Ford (1973-76) +5.2

Reagan (1981-84) +5.2

Harry S. Truman (1949-48) +3.3

Roosevelt (1937-40) +3.3

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-56) +2.8

George H. W. Bush (1989-92) +2.5

Eisenhower (1957-60) +0.8

George W. Bush (2000 - 04) (-1.2)

Herbert Hoover (1929-32) (-6.4)