And exactly how many times has unemployment been that high during an election year? I recall another thread pointing out it’s not been at that level in an election year often enough to have a credible “rule” like that.
And I’m getting tired of BBC. Now they’re harping on the jobs report as “weak,” “disappointing” etc, the same as they keep saying the race is “neck and neck” and “anyone’s guess.” Just what is the British public being fed about this election?
The markets were close to flat on Friday - the big gains were earlier in the week. However, they did not fall on the weak employment data because investors hope that ongoing bad news about jobs will inspire the Fed to undertake a third round of quantitative easing. Sort of a case that a bit of bad news will catalyze events viewed as good news.
Yeah, it does look like he was talking bollocks. I also looked up numbers employed and numbers unemployed and both of those also worsened in October 2004.
Well, the numbers are weak and disappointing. What do you expect them to say?
Or screw it up with huge irrational fears of deficits or something.
I don’t think they will be pointing to the decrease in the headline rate. Everybody in the media has already pointed out why the rate decreased and the Pubs will club them over the head if they try to take credit for a reduction.
Hardly irrational. Our national debt is at the point where it starts impacting economic growth significantly.
If only the expectations had been set at, oh, say 80,000, just think of how great Obama would look right now! I mean, really, who decided that 125,000 should be the number?
First, I want to correct myself, because FDR was not re-elected in 1932. Fortunately, I’m not running for office, so this error will not be repeated by the media ad nauseum for the next six weeks.
But my point was exactly what others have said, that other than those three, I couldn’t identify any election year when unemployment was above 8%. Prior to 2008, the only other time unemployment was that high was in 1982, during Reagan’s first term, but it had dropped by the time of the '84 election. So there isn’t really any data to go on, and based on 1936 and 1940, you could just as easily say that high unemployment makes people more likely to support the incumbent. In fact, the only time a president was ever elected to a third term, unemployment was at almost 15%.
Well . . . 1936 and 1940.
Spoiler box for anyone who hasn’t yet seen the 1932 Presidential Election.
The incumbent kinda got his ass handed to him.
Wow. How did it take me 6 minutes to type that?
I have heard on TV (no cite) that the expectations are determined by a survey of economists. I do not know if that is any official forum or who does the survey.
While the numbers would be peceived better if they exceeded expectations, there are still some hard numbers that mean something irrespective of expectations. On average, you need about 100,000 new jobs to keep up with growth in the labor force. 200,000 is often quoted as the number needed to make significant inroads into unemployment during recovery from a recession.
Hence an expectation of 80,000 with actual of 96,000 would be “poor, but at least not as bad as expected.” The actual numbers were “poor and even worse than expected.” Even hitting 125,000 would not have been very good, but at least nobody would be surprised. Well, except for perhaps being astonished that economists had managed to predict something accurately.
Well, if anybody had ever bothered to, you know, to check*, they would have found NO years, after the FDR administration at least, where the unemployment rate was at least 8.0% the fall of a presidential election. Interestingly, if we expand that to “8.0+ during any of the previous four years of the incumbent’s term”, then Sir Ronnie shows up at over 10% 17 months before the 2004 campaign. Ford had a 8.2 in Dec '75, and George Sr. had a 7.8 in June 1992. But since those were Republican administrations, then we can safely ignore them while continuing to give the current Democratic president more unreasoned grief.
[*No idea why the link doesn’t work from my preview-you can probably easily find it again yourself if, like I said, you are genuinely and dispassionately curious, and not just interested in earning yourself a crass and rudimentary political point.]
Nate Silver just tweeted this link and its very positive for Obama
And Nate’s twitter is even more positive
How does this relate to the OP?
Despite Jobs numbers, which are still positive growth, only more modest than expected, OB’s convention bounce still puts him ahead of the 50 Shades of White guy.
The fact that the economy added some jobs in August isn’t the big boost you make it out to be. Go look at my post in the other thread that you ignored.
U6 unemployment is a more comprehensive number that includes people who have given up looking for work, and this month it was at 14.7%. That is, in fact, down from 15% last month, as Radiowave predicted. Look on this:
(At the bottom are links to graphs of all 6 categories of unemployment.)
For better or worse, U3 unemployment, which does not include people who gave up looking, is considered the “official” unemployment number. More on that:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
U1:[42] Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
U3: Official unemployment rate per the ILO definition occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks.[1]
U4: U3 + “discouraged workers”, or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
U5: U4 + other “marginally attached workers”, or “loosely attached workers”, or those who “would like” and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
U6: U5 + Part-time workers who want to work full-time, but cannot due to economic reasons (underemployment).
[/QUOTE]
Thank you for Bolding the obvious. As for your other post, its inconsequential.
Yes, because if presented with a fact you don’t like, ignoring it is always the best course of action.