WSJ: Political Debate Over Jobs Intensifies

[question everything]

Bush Team Hopes for Lift From Friday Payroll Data;
Revisions to Get Attention

By GREG IP
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 5, 2004

The jobs debate heats up this week, with the White House expecting that revised payroll data to be released Friday will put a shine on President Bush's record of helping the economy create new jobs. Friday's data will be the last released before the Nov. 2 election. While markets will focus on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' jobs report for September, politicians might pay more attention to revised data for the period from March 2003 through March 2004.

A memo from the president's Council of Economic Advisers estimates that the payroll-employment figure for that period could be revised upward by 288,000 jobs, and conceivably by as much as 384,000. In August, nonfarm payroll employment stood 913,000 jobs, or 0.8%, below the level when President Bush took office.

(snip)

The White House estimate, prepared by career CEA technical staff, hasn't any effect on what the independent BLS actually will report Friday. "This is a very preliminary estimate," said CEA spokesman Phillip Swagel, adding it was generated by an economic model with a typical statistical error range of plus or minus 140,000 jobs. "The only number that matters is the number that the BLS announces on Friday." The BLS will incorporate its revisions in the official data in February.

(snip)

Even with positive revisions, Democrats probably will be able to attack Mr. Bush as the first president to oversee no net job creation since Herbert Hoover. Republicans have countered that the Bureau of Labor Statistics' household survey shows employment actually up 1.9 million, or 1.4%, under Mr. Bush. But a study published earlier this year by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland finds the household survey, examined more closely, tells a much less positive story. The staff study found that when the most reliable part of the household survey is compared with the payroll survey, "both measures ... show a surprisingly similar picture of the weak labor-market performance that has prevailed during this recovery relative to previous business cycle periods."

(snip)


Write to Greg Ip at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109693084409535899,00.html

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. Did they figure out how to count ebay yet? n/t

[shraby]

2. I don't know. Did they count McDonalds

as a manufacturing job?

[acmavm]

3. Once more I 'll ask, how does this fit in with the jobs cuts that are

being announced NOW? I read of 5000 jobs being cut in some major corporation yesterday, and Deloitt Touche said that by the end of 2005 (I think) 1/50th of the jobs in our country will have been outsourced.

What good is the to make out of this if you base your facts on reality instead of smoke and mirrors?