For four days and nights, the Democrats have tried to convince Americans that they have earned the privilege to remain in the White House. Less than twelve hours after the president accepted renomination, the latest employment data wiped out their rationale. It’s that ugly.
We’ll start with the payroll data. The top-line figure is bad enough: a paltry 96,000 jobs created in August (BLS). Even so, things are worse when one looks deeper: adjustments in the July and June data reduced their job creation figures by 40,000 in total (BLS again). In other words, nearly half the job “growth” in August simply makes up for statistical errors in prior months…
… and that’s the good news.
The unemployment data (a.k.a., the household data) is even worse. While most may focus on the fall in unemployment to 8.1%, that reduction (from 8.3%) is due entirely to a reduction in the workforce. In fact, using the household data, the number of working Americans actually fell by 119,000 (BLS one more time).
Speaking of the unemployment rate: at 8.1% it remains higher than the 7.8% the president inherited in January of 2009. In fact, unemployment has never been as low under this president as it was during his predecessor’s last (and worst) month.
This is not to say the president inherited a good economy. It is to say he has clearly made the economy worse.
