John Snow: April job report result of "relief of the President’s tax cuts"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/js1525.htm

FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

May 7, 2004
JS-1525

Statement of Secretary John Snow on the April Employment Report

In the eighth straight month of growth, the economy created 288,000 jobs in April, bringing the total increase since August to more than 1.1 million. The unemployment rate, which is down substantially from its peak last summer, fell in April and is below the average of each of the past three decades.

The longer Americans and American businesses feel the relief of the President’s tax cuts, the more the tide of our economy rises. This is apparent in today’s jobs report as well as in the reading of GDP growth out last week.

The government must ensure that our free market system is as strong and unfettered as possible. The President’s actions to remove weights, like excessive taxation, have provided for needed economic expansion and job growth. But more needs to be done to continue on this upward path. The Administration is committed to reducing lawsuit abuse, ensuring an affordable supply of energy and stemming the rising cost of health care. With the President’s leadership, the economy will continue to strengthen and create jobs.

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. Eryup! Another Snow job for sure! n/t

[otohara]

2. A Love Letter to pResident Bush, from John

Could this be any more nauseating?

President’s tax cuts...The President’s actions...the President’s leadership -

[LizMoonstar]

3. oh yes, except for the fact that

both my and my parents' taxes went up this past year. And I didn't make enough money to qualify for the EIC, so I paid taxes on my 8k of pay this year. Yay. I'm sure part of it was that I filed as a non-dependent for the first time, but I paid taxes as a dependent all year and took no exemptions, so I should have gotten that money back. Bastards.

[Tracyjo]

21. don't feel bad

I was on unemployment and had to pay in...$800.00 bucks.

[orwell]

4. Myth

This tax cut as economic savior canard is a myth promulgated by the no-tax wing of the Cons.

Any "economic recovery" will generate jobs. This begs the question: Is the job growth above historical trend, along trend, or sub-trend? The answer is this job recovery has been severely sub-trend, by any measure.

The most important factor in this "recovery" is the explosive rate of money supply stimulus engineered by the Fed. The difference in the effect of the tax cuts (Con "NeoKeynesian" stimulus) and the lengthy period of effectively free money is tremendous. The debt ridden US economy can not survive without greater and greater levels of monetary stimulus. This is the net result of almost 100 years of steady inflationary policy enabled by the "money-drug kingpins" at the Federal Reserve.

This is not free market economics, but planned market engineering. Combine that with tax policy that rewards some economic participants over others and you have the equivalent of the economic Politburo, deliberately and effectively sold to a gullible and credit-addicted public as the free market.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

[JDPriestly]

7. The Bush economy has not regained the jobs

lost in the first four years. I know. I'm still looking.

[LizMoonstar]

10. I am as well.

I graduated from college in May 2004 and have had an internship and a six-week temp contract since then, and can't find another job.

[JDPriestly]

11. I'm sorry to hear that,

but I'm glad to see you are politically active. We can only improve things by changing the political climate.

[RUMPLEMINTZ]

12. Here is the chart

from the labor department

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=CES0000000001&output_view=net_1mth

It looks like the gain is 809,000 jobs. Since the average hourly wage has dropped from $15.75 to $15.25 these jobs ain't too good.

[TahitiNut]

16. Worse, private employment is still below late-2000 levels, and not once ..

... during all of the months since then has employment growth either matched or exceeded the AVERAGE growth rate of the last 50 years.

We're still over 10 million jobs below 'full' employment levels, levels exceeded in the latter Clinton/Gore years.

[Arkana]

5. If Cheney is the apprentice Sith, he must be the master.

[kentuck]

6. Considering it was 4% when he came in...

5.2% now is downright amazing!

[Capn Sunshine]

8. Oh, and he's still in the hole for job creation

Forget for a moment the average NEW job created today pays about 28% LESS than the average new job created under Clintonomics.

Just demographically, to BREAK EVEN you need to create 290,000-300,000 new jobs per period.

Have you ever seen that number YET since the "Tax cut miracle?"
Going back to '01?

Lying douchebags.

[orwell]

9. Actually

I think his "net job loss" for his Presidential term was erased sometime around the beginning of this year - whatever that means.

There was at least one month of 300,000.

But the labor statistics are notoriously unreliable. The methods of counting jobs are highly questionable, and that includes the household survey.

Of course they are lying. They have raised the bar - already at stratospheric heights - set by many politicians and pundits.

As you suggest, the tax cut miracle is a marketing ploy by the elite asset controlling class to mask the serious structural deformity that passes for the modern free market.

[ComerPerro]

17. How many rounds of tax cuts does it take

before they start working like Bush promised they would?

[Skittles]

13. LOL

what dick, what a stupid f***ing bush whore

[gratuitous]

14. Does this mean that the Bush administration has started at last?

And that any further bad economic news can actually be blamed on the corrupt Bush administration? After all, every layoff, every plant closing, every job that's gone out of the American economy and overseas, ever dollar of the federal deficit for the last four years has been blamed on Clinton.

So we are now officially into the Bush presidency, is that what you're saying, Mr. Snow?

[orleans]

20. Mr. Snow says:

No! It just means that if things are getting better it's no thanks to Clinton!

[wisteria]

15. Yeah, right!

The job numbers aren't that great and are probably the result of better weather and seasonal employment. Are any of these jobs quality jobs?

[LuPeRcALiO]

23. factory jobs down, McJobs up

So these are not quality jobs:

"Retailers, bars and restaurants, health care providers, construction companies and financial services all showed employment rising. Factories, however, lost jobs for the second straight month. Clothing, automobile, food and furniture makers were among the manufacturers where employment declined."

Note that most construction jobs these days are performed by non-union immigrant laborers.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050507/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

[high density]

18. Yeah, jobs at Wal-Mart and McDonalds! Thanks Bush!

The economy will really get a rollin' now that we have those $6.40/hr jobs at these loving corporate entities.

[Starfury]

19. Same pattern as last year?

Last year, job growth was strong for March and April, then went back to sub-par numbers for the rest of the year. My prediction: same thing happening this time.

In case folks have forgotten, here's a story from last Spring to compare:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/02/news/economy/jobs/
Note the quotes by the analysts recommending not to jump to any conclusions based on one decent month. Keep in mind, ~150,000 new jobs are needed every month just to keep up with population growth...

----

Here's the other side of the coin that Mr. Snowe "forgot" to mention:

http://jec.senate.gov/democrats/Documents/Releases/may05unemploymentrel.pdf
"ECONOMY POSTS HEALTHY JOB GAINS, BUT WAGES ARE NOT KEEPING PACE WITH INFLATION

Washington, D.C. – The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.2 percent in April, and 274,000 total payroll jobs were created. Non-government jobs grew by 256,000.

“While healthy job growth is a welcome development in the labor market, the lack of real wage gains remains a dark cloud in this recovery,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC). “Worker productivity is strong, but wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation. Workers are facing higher prices for basic necessities such as gas, food and clothing, but their take-home pay is not growing, so families are feeling the squeeze.”

The weakness of the labor market continues to be reflected in the stagnation of workers’ earnings. In the twelve months ending in March, both average hourly earnings and average weekly earnings of private sector workers are down about ½ percent after accounting for inflation. Employers are absorbing higher costs for benefits such as health insurance, which drives up measures of total compensation. However, increases in compensation that reflect employers’ higher costs rather than more generous benefit packages squeeze the take-home pay of workers.

The distribution of earnings is also becoming much more unequal. The real earnings of workers at the bottom (10th percentile) of the earnings distribution fell by 1.4 percent over the last year, while increases in real earnings were evident only at the very top (90th percentile) of the distribution.

Overall, there are still 7.7 million unemployed Americans, and about 5.1 million additional workers who want a job but are not counted among the unemployed. An additional 4.3 million people work part-time because of the weak economy. The unemployment rate would be 9.0 percent if the figure included those who want to work but are not counted among the unemployed and those who are forced to work part-time because of the weak economy. More than one in every five unemployed people – 1.6 million Americans – has been jobless for more than 26 weeks, the maximum number of weeks for receiving regular unemployment insurance benefits."

-----

More economic data and charts by the JEC at their homepage: http://jec.senate.gov/democrats/ber.htm


Edit: added emphasis

[0007]

22. Pure fucking garbage

"With the President’s leadership, the economy will continue to strengthen and create jobs."

[dusty64]

24. So I suppose this

means that when the economy and job numbers tank they will be taking responsibility for it and attributing it to their policies now .......