NYT: Job Figures Help President Promote Economic Record (?)

[DeepModem Mom]

Job Figures Help President Promote Economic Record
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

Published: September 4, 2004


....Mr. Bush began his burst of campaigning in Moosic, Pa., outside Scranton, an hour after the Labor Department had released figures showing that the economy generated 144,000 jobs last month.

That was a bit below what economists had projected but considerably more than in each of the previous few months, when employment growth had all but stalled. The unemployment rate declined, to 5.4 percent form 5.5 percent, in July.

"Our growing economy is spreading prosperity and opportunity, and nothing will hold us back," Mr. Bush said in Pennsylvania.

The employment figure was high enough to be a huge relief to the campaign, which had feared that another month of pronounced weakness in the job market would have left Mr. Bush very much on the defensive.

But it was not strong enough to deprive Mr. Kerry of the opportunity to point out that Mr. Bush still stands to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs in his term. Despite a yearlong string of monthly employment increases, some robust and some paltry, the economy has still lost nearly one million jobs since Mr. Bush took office....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/04/politics/campaign/04bush.html

[0rganism]

1. They capitalize on America's fundamental misunderstanding of the UER

When bush brags about the drop to 5.4% in UER, he's really praising the fact that fewer people are receiving unemployment benefits, more people are discouraged from looking for work at all, and his touted tax cuts really aren't helping anyone but the wealthiest investors. The economy needs to grow 150000 jobs/month just to break even with working-age population growth. To recover the million jobs we've lost since 2001 in a year, we'd need to pick up 235000 jobs/month that whole year straight.

If the Kerry campaign doesn't point this out in a vicious attack ad campaign, maybe they don't deserve to win.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Also, he already made it harder to collect unemployment benefits.

He has narrowed the window of opportunity for people to receive benefits in the first place, right? That's bound to knock the figures down. This is pathetic.

(Bush) Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.

http://www.hilltopdesign.com/mt/archives/watching_bush/000114.html