I always find it galling when I see some who, in their pursuit of maligning and belittling Barck Obama, actually come across as rooting against America. A great example of that is the practice of always trying to undermine good employment news by focusing on the numbers of people who have dropped out of the labor force. Now I remember years back how Republicans never focused on labor force participation rates when liberals brought up issues related thereto in their arguments about the effectiveness of conservative economic policies as they related to employment. Thus I find it somewhat ironic as to just how much conservatives have come around to seeing the labor force drop out rate as an issue when once upon a time they had ignored it completely or spun it so as to lessen its importance. Now a guy named Massimo Calabresi has written an article that completely blows the latest criticism of the improving employment situation right out of the water: “January Jobs Report”: Good News for the Economy, Bad News for the Pessimists: http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/03/january-jobs-report-good-news-for-the-economy-bad-news-for-the-pessimists/?xid=thepage_newsletter#ixzz1lPZA3oLg
Here are a few of the high points: “Some Obama opponents are struggling to find a cloud in the silver lining of January’s jobs numbers, which estimated that there was a 243,000-job boost and a big drop in the unemployment rate, from 8.5% to 8.3%, last month. Their biggest gripe focuses on the size of the labor force: As the unemployment rate has trended down over the last few months, anti-Obama commentators have argued that the official percentage for those without jobs is deceptive because the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t count those who have stopped looking for work. In Friday’s report, they found a sharp increase in that group: More than 1.2 million people joined the non-job seeking pool of working-age Americans last month…I was ready to join the pessimists Friday morning when I saw the sharp drop in the unemployment rate, but for a different reason. The January unemployment report, I had been forewarned by BLS, was the first to be based on models using 2010 census figures. (All these numbers are guestimations based on surveys of smaller samples taken around the country). A big shift up or down in the unemployment rate, I thought, could be explained by the change in the overall population of the country, reflected in the census numbers…But the census adjustments actually work against my theory and that of the Obama-detractors. The demographic adjustments had no effect on the unemployment rate, says Mary Bowler, the resident expert in these matters at the BLS. And when it comes to labor force estimates, the steep jump in the number of those not seeking work came entirely from the census adjustment, which added 1.25 million people to that group. If you take out the census adjustment, the labor force numbers stayed essentially the same, as reflected by the labor force participation rate of 63.7%. In other words, the spike in the number of people no longer looking for work is entirely the result of some people at the Labor Department adding numbers to their spread sheets rather than an actual observed shift anywhere in the real economy.”
Okay so Calabresi’s revelation really does take a lot of the wind out of the sails of the Obama obsessed critics. I for one hadn’t thought of this and I know they didn’t either. Had they had this information they couldn’t have made the arguments they did in the first place, not without spinning and distorting the census information, that is. On top of this there are other statistics that point to economic improvement, Manufacturing employment up, construction employment up, improving employment prospects for young people and “the Institute for Supply Management on Friday reported that factory orders were up 1.1% in December, suggesting job growth may continue, at least in the manufacturing sector, as producers hire more workers to meet demand.”
So what will an improving economy mean for the Republican contenders going forward? Well for Romney it will take away a big part of his sales pitch to America, not the end of the world as he’ll need more time to defend himself from attacks on all sides about his being rich and out of touch. Likewise economic improvements will work against the criticisms of Gingrich and Santorum as well the larger claque on the far right who seem to love to root against their own country. Oh the pathos of irony!
