Bush Hails New Employment Figures Released This Morning
Bush hailed new figures showing the unemployment rate dropped slightly to 5.4 percent while the economy added 144,000 jobs last month. That figure was slightly below projections by economists."Overall, we've added about 1.7 million jobs since August 2003. The unemployment rate is down to 5.4 percent. That's nearly a full point below the rate last summer and below the average of the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s," he said.
Bush's Democratic rival had a different take on the jobs figures. In a statement, John Kerry said the numbers mean Bush remains on pace to be the first president since the Great Depression to have no net gain in jobs during his term.
Other "presidents have faced wars and recessions, but not one of them has failed to create a single job," Kerry said.
I'm no economist, but from what I know thanks to Brad DeLong and Atrios and others, the economy needs to add about 150,000 jobs a month to keep up with the growing labor pool. So, a gain of 144,000 jobs last month actually means 6,000 more people who were looking for jobs could not find one. Plus, if Bush's 1.7 million jobs added is true, it's still 100,000 short of keeping pace with the growing labor pool. This is after catastrophic job losses earlier in his term. Simply put, the economy is still bleeding jobs. The very first Bush tax cuts were meant to add jobs, not steady the recession economy, as he later claimed they would do -- and you can scarcely say they did even that, now. We are millions of jobs short of what Bush alleged his pyramid-scheme tax cuts would achieve.
Oh, and as of nearly 1:30 p.m. today, let's just say the stock market didn't take off after hearing the news.
But as long as Bush is happy with the growth, and his allies are telling the jobless to suck it up and not be girlie men ...
[Cross-posted]