Friday’s very disappointing jobs report may not have received the full attention it should have, largely due to the “change the subject” coverage by the Obama-friendly media. We saw that only 80,000 new jobs were added, falling short of the mark, and maintaining the U3 unemployment rate of 8.2%. I would submit to you that once the numbers are revised, it may goose that rate to 8.3%, and as we’ve seen time and time again, the numbers are almost always revised to reflect an uglier number than what was initially reported.
But without even speculating, we know a few things about the new jobs report that spell out just how bad it was. For instance, the second quarter of 2012 was the worst hiring quarter in two years. Additionally, we wonder if the extra 800K to 1.2M new laborers added to the pool by the president’s DREAM Act amnesty were considered in this unemployment rate. Prior to the amnesty, approximately 150,000 new jobs per month were necessary just to keep up with population growth, but with the additional laborers, 200,000 jobs must be added each month. Was this fact taken into consideration or did the department of labor just gloss over it?
One third of the new hires were temporary, which is better than nothing, but most certainly a portion of those new jobs will come to an end much sooner than long-term positions. We’ve discussed the real U6 unemployment rate, which does not ignore the folks who have given up trying to find work, and despite a brief dip in recent months, it has now jumped back up to 14.9%. There are a whole lot of Americans out of work who would love to be at work. Every month the unemployment figures remain ugly or get even uglier, and it’s only four months before the election. At this point, it’s clear that the economy is not going to improve before November, and voters vote out incumbents when the economy is bad. These facts put President Obama at grave risk of being beaten by a Ham Sandwich.
Still Disappointed . . .
The JunkMan
