Unemployment increases to 8.3% in July

[MorningInAmerica]

Just wondering how this hasn't been posted yet. As quiet as a funeral home around here when it comes to the economy. Wonder why.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-added-163000-jobs-in-july-unemployment-rate-ticks-up-to-83-percent/2012/08/03/ee10172a-dd68-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_story.html

“It just looks like we’re moving sideways,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics.

[Keystone Phil]

And the race is still, at best, a toss up for Romney. What does that tell you?

[MorningInAmerica]

And the race is still, at best, a toss up for Romney. What does that tell you?

Like most pundits point out, the average voter isn't paying attention to the Romney/Obama feud yet. Let them go through these last 3 jobs reports before November, the conventions, and the VP pick. Then we'll see where they stand.

[Senator Sbane]

Lol did you not notice the 163,000+ job gain or something?

[Likely Voter]

Yes it's all a big conspiracy of silence

The jobs number is, as noted by your link, good news (163k new jobs) and bad news (8.3). It is certainly better than last month.

[MorningInAmerica]

So if we added 200k jobs, and the unemployment rate still jumped to 8.7%, you'd say that's a good thing? Ummmkay.

Yes it's all a big conspiracy of silence

The jobs number is, as noted by your link, good news (163k new jobs) and bad news (8.3). It is certainly better than last month.

Like the economist in the article says, all this means is the economy is moving sideways. Not "Forward."

[Likely Voter]

Always easier to argue against a straw man and make things up I suppose.

Anyway as noted by the article, things "essentially remain unchanged". Obviously more jobs and lower rate is what Obama wants and that would help him, and things getting worse would benefit Romney. Not sure that this report is going to change much politically.

As noted in the article, Obama gets to continue to talk about how many jobs have been created in total since mid 2009 and Romney can still talk about the rate and total unemployment.

Of course the overall economic conditions benefit Romney, but Obama can keep hammering on how the congress has failed to act on his jobs plan, and if there is one group that is less popular than Obama or Romney it is Congress

[Senator Sbane]

So if we added 200k jobs, and the unemployment rate still jumped to 8.7%, you'd say that's a good thing? Ummmkay.

Yes it's all a big conspiracy of silence

The jobs number is, as noted by your link, good news (163k new jobs) and bad news (8.3). It is certainly better than last month.

Like the economist in the article says, all this means is the economy is moving sideways. Not "Forward."

Don't try to spin this as a positive for Romney, Mr. Evening in America. Your delight at other American's pain shows you don't really believe in your username, or it only applies when Republicans are in power. In any case the employment report shows that the American economy is chugging along slowly. This has been the case for more than a year so why would it impact the race now?

The unemployment number and the payroll numbers come from two different surveys so there is not too much of a contradiction in the numbers. In any case the unemployment rate barely moved (probably not even a full 1% but was rounded up). I was surprised that it did not go higher than 8.2% when we got the sub 100K payroll numbers the last few months. So averaging the payroll numbers for the last 4 months, a slight uptick in the employment rate should have been expected. The timing was just a little off. The real question is whether the higher payroll numbers are here to stay or if this was just a one-off thing and the next few payroll numbers will be below 100k.

[Gravis Marketing]

The change in unemployment was from 8.22% to 8.25%.

[Beet]

As I've said before, the total number of jobs is more important than the unemployment rate, because the latter is affected by labor participation, and the survey that it is based on is far less accurate.

[OC]

Well, it is just gonna make it that much tougher for Obama to be reelected, but he can under such circumstances.

[MorningInAmerica]

Your delight at other American's pain shows you don't really believe in your username, or it only applies when Republicans are in power.

Do you frequently just make stuff up like this? I just prefer knowing how delusional the people I'm conversing with are. Pointing out the terrible economic record of the President does not mean you delight in others pain. "Evening in America." Be honest, how long did it take ya to come up with that one?

[Beet]

The ironic thing is that the economy has generated 2.7 million jobs in the 49 months since the recession ended in June 2009. In the 49 months after the Bush II recession ended in November 2001, the housing bubble-fueled economy had generated only 1.4 million jobs.

[MorningInAmerica]

The ironic thing is that the economy has generated 2.7 million jobs in the 49 months since the recession ended in June 2009. In the 49 months after the Bush II recession ended in November 2001, the housing bubble-fueled economy had generated only 1.4 million jobs.

Fair enough, but 4.3 million jobs were LOST from February 2009 to February 2010. If you include January 2009, 5.1 million jobs have been lost. Most economists agree that given those numbers 2.7 million since June 2009 isn't cutting it.

[zorkpolitics]

Of course the U3 monthly number is an example of how the government defines unemployment not how unemployed people woudl define it.

U3 doesn't count people who ran out of unemployment benefits, stopped looking in the last 5 months, took early retirement into SS, or signed up for SS disability.  The "official" unemployment including discouraged workers, U6 15%.  

But even this number was "modified" back in 1994 to exclude many discouraged workers.  The true unemployment rate is near its peak of 23%.  More than 10 percentage points greater than its low point in 2007.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

We have an extremely long way to go to recover from the recession.

[Beet]

The ironic thing is that the economy has generated 2.7 million jobs in the 49 months since the recession ended in June 2009. In the 49 months after the Bush II recession ended in November 2001, the housing bubble-fueled economy had generated only 1.4 million jobs.

Fair enough, but 4.3 million jobs were LOST from February 2009 to February 2010. If you include January 2009, 5.1 million jobs have been lost. Most economists agree that given those numbers 2.7 million since June 2009 isn't cutting it.

Yes, it's well known that Obama inherited an economy that was losing nearly a million jobs a month.

The pace of job growth isn't enough, but we're heading in the right direction. One people don't realize is that there's often a trade-off between jobs and debt. When the economy is adding debt at a faster rate, it "pulls demand forward" and thus more jobs are created to meet that demand. But the economy was drowning in so much debt in 2009 that the recovery has had to both create employment and deleverage debt at the same time. As I've stated in this post.

Here are the Total Debt to GDP ratios at the end of each recession since 1955, and the ratio 10 quarters later:

1957-58 [142.8%] [149.0%] [+6.8%]
1960-61 [148.0%] [148.8%] [+0.8%]
1969-70 [151.9%] [149.0%] [-2.9%]
1973-75 [155.1%] [153.3%] [-1.8%]
1980-81 [164.4%] [174.0%] [+9.6%]
1981-82 [174.1%] [189.3%] [+15.2%]
1990-91 [235.7%] [238.3%] [+2.6%]
2001 [283.3%] [313.3%] [+30.0%]
2007-09 [385.4%] [354.1%] [-31.3%]

That means that employment creation will be slower than otherwise. But it will pick up as the deleveraging cycle comes to an end (and if Europe doesn't fall apart).

[J. J.]

Lol did you not notice the 163,000+ job gain or something?

Yes, along with a revision downward of last month's numbers.

OTOH, the market rallied (on expectation of inflation).

[Landslide Lyndon]

Lol did you not notice the 163,000+ job gain or something?

Yes, along with a revision downward of last month's numbers.

And a revision upwards for May.

You aren't very smart, are you?

[Pacific Councillor LiberalJunkie]

The change in unemployment was from 8.22% to 8.25%.

Lol so basically it just stayed the same.

[Likely Voter]

Of course this latest economic era is being dragged down by the big cuts in government jobs, as noted by the WSJ unemployment rate would be 1% lower if it were for so many gov job layoffs. For the last 30 months or so the private sector has produced more and more jobs but every month the number gets dragged down by gov. job cuts.

Makes one wonder how those who want to cut even more government spending work out that it will lead to more jobs.

[Lief]

Clearly we're just not cutting enough government jobs. Just like the Bush tax cuts failed to create jobs and not explode the deficit because we didn't cut taxes for the rich enough.

[Senator Sbane]

Your delight at other American's pain shows you don't really believe in your username, or it only applies when Republicans are in power.

Do you frequently just make stuff up like this? I just prefer knowing how delusional the people I'm conversing with are. Pointing out the terrible economic record of the President does not mean you delight in others pain. "Evening in America." Be honest, how long did it take ya to come up with that one?

Two seconds lol. But seriously, do you really believe any president has that much of an impact on jobs? I think an argument could be made that Angela Merkel controls the fate of the US economy more currently than Obama does. As for the fiscal cliff, I think both parties are at fault. A deal needs to be struck cutting spending and raising taxes on the rich. Both parties are complicit in failing to do that, preferring to pander to their base instead. In any case I don't think that huge of an impact is made on the economy by the President, excluding some case where the President is really radical, which is the exact opposite of what Obama is. So since I don't see the President making a huge impact on jobs, using the jobs report for political purposes, especially rejoicing in unemployment going up, strikes me as being crass.

[Senator Sbane]

Lol did you not notice the 163,000+ job gain or something?

Yes, along with a revision downward of last month's numbers.

OTOH, the market rallied (on expectation of inflation).

Including the revision for May, the numbers were revised down 6000 for both months combined.

[Progressive Realist]

And the race is still, at best, a toss up for Romney. What does that tell you?

Joke Party, Joke Candidate.

[LINCOLN REPUBLICAN]

As if any further proof is needed that Obama is completely in over his head when it comes to having a clue about how to deal with the economy.