In case you missed it, the June jobs report is out, and the numbers are not good (though the Obama administration had a ready-made – and well-worn – excuse ready to go at a moment’s notice; more on that below).
As Daniel Horowitz wrote here this morning:
The headline number of the establishment survey is that only 80,000 net jobs were created last month, about 100k under the requisite amount to accommodate the population increase. The working-age population grew by 189k in June, according to the household survey. As such, there are now 29 thousand more unemployed than there were last month. The U6 rate also ticked up to 14.9%.
Also, the labor participation rate and population-employment ration remain near all-time lows. There are now 1.82 million more people not in the labor force now than just 12 months ago. If you go back to January 2009, the month Obama took office, that number is a whopping 5.48 million! This comes after several months of dismal jobs reports. We’ve been averaging just 75,000 new jobs over the past three months. What about minorities? According to the household survey, unemployment among blacks ticked up almost a full point to 14.4%.
There’s no question that these numbers are, to put it plainly, abysmal. Further, coming as they do three and a half years into the Barack Obama’s presidency, it would be pretty safe to take this jobs report (along with those that have preceded it) as a reflection of this administration’s economic policies, which clearly haven’t put people back to work in any meaningful numbers since it began.
US Unemployment Rate data by YCharts
Of course, the Obama administration immediately responded to the anemic report by warning against taking one month’s numbers too seriously, saying, “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”
If that admonition sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve heard it before, almost word for word – on thirty separate occasions. That’s right: of the forty-one economic turmoil-filled months Barack Obama has been president, thirty have been followed by almost identical cautions not to take any individual month’s numbers too seriously.
The following links are courtesy of the good folks at the Romney campaign:
May 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”
April 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”
March 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”
February 2012: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.”
January 2012: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.”
December 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
November 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
October 2011: “The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision. There is no better example than August’s jobs figure, which was initially reported at zero and in the latest revision increased to 104,000. This illustrates why the Administration always stresses it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
September 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
August 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
July 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
June 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
May 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
April 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
March 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
February 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
January 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
December 2010: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
November 2010: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
October 2010: “Given the volatility in monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
September 2010: “Given the volatility in the monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
July 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative. It is essential that we continue our efforts to move in the right direction and replace job losses with robust job gains.”
August 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
June 2010: “As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
May 2010: “As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
April 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
March 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
January 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
November 2009: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
Once again, out of 41 months, that’s 30 warnings not to take monthly jobs reports too seriously. With unemployment sitting at 8.2 percent, and the election only four months away, the verdict is already in, and it’s not based on “any one monthly report, positive or negative.” It’s based on a record nearly four years long – a record that clearly shows this president can’t be trusted with this economy any longer.
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