How much do you feel this will affect Obama’s chances of reelection in 2012?
Does Obama deserve any credit at all?
Tangentially, has Obama’s efforts to ‘go around’ Congress to spur job-growth impacted the general perception of his performance at all, positively or negatively, regardless whether or not the initiatives ultimately bear fruit?
An economist on TV said that because there’s so much economic uncertainty for the long term, short term markers like monthly unemployment numbers are nothing to get excited about. The rate could just as easily go up next month.
He deserves the credit of course, but for what? For UE STILL above 8%. The drop is just that, a drop in the bucket. I don’t really see how he can be proud of and try to use this as a reason to re-elect him. Perhaps if his policies dropped to 5 or 6% it would be something to put on a resume. But as it stands it is way too little, way too late.
If you’re replying to me, you shouldn’t have bothered; it was a joke. With the election a year away, do you really think he’d campaign on a number that’s going to change next month?
I think the rate drop is supposed to be because a lot of people (350,000) dropped out of the labor force, i. e., gave up on looking for work. This means the percentage of the labor force seeking work dropped to 8.6%, but it doesn’t mean the other 0.4% found work. Only 120,000 more jobs were created, only about a 0.1% increase in employment.
Yes. 120k new jobs is not even enough to absorb the increase in the working age population, even excluding net migration. The decrease in the unemployment rate has been largely driven by a decrease in workforce participation. This is not a good thing in the long run, because of course GDP per capital must fall and it is basically pushing the problem down the road. As the recovery tries to gather steam, discouraged workers return, and unemployment remains high.
A related question: How is a measurement of “people who have stopped looking for work” even taken? Is that just the number of people whose benefits have run out in a given period?
Or is someone actually out there doing surveys of the unemployed and asking the question?
Plus I’m going to wait to see if these number follow the recent tradition of being released low to much fanfare then over the next few months “corrected” upwards.
That’s how the unemployment rate is figured out-- taking surveys. They can also determine who just isn’t looking for work from the same surveys.
As for the OP, if this is a trend, it’s good for Obama. As it stands, it’s one data point. The election is still a year away. So much can happen between now and then.
The only people who deserve the credit for the drop in the unemployment rate are the people who stopped looking for work. Obama needs to get out there and tell EVERYONE to stop looking and be happy with being unemployed, so that the unemployment rate can go to 0% and he can get re-elected. Yay!
True, and I’m already prepared to discount the November and December numbers when they come out as they will probably have been inflated by seasonal hires who will be released by early to mid January, but I do have some optimism for a downward trend.
Obama deserves no credit for the rate going down, and he deserves no blame for it going up. For some time now Presidents have not had the lion’s share of control on the economy. And my understanding is that there is as of yet no consensus on why the rate went down in the first place. In addition, there is still major debate over what the “real” unemployment rate is in the first place.
I don’t doubt the number is correct, but what it means is open.
My company is multinational and large. We have offices and locations worldwide and nationwide.
We are now approaching 30% for our labor force for part timers. My area is H/R and our two Chicago area locations both are over 50% (one near 70%) for part time. My location for Chicago area is holding it’s own, but we only hire part timers. I hired one full time employee all of 2011 and only five other for 2009 through 2010.
We are still hiring a lot, but they are all between 8 and 24 hours. This is actually working out well for us, but the turn over is amazing. As people will trade an 8 hour part time job with us for a 24 hour part time job with another company. I don’t blame them. They need the hours
We used to do a relatively large part time work force about 12% even in good times so I’m sure our number aren’t typical. But you can see our part time force is nearly 4 times as large as it should be in normal times.
I think there is a massive problem with underemployment and most of our part timers are working two jobs. This I think is really going underlooked. I can only recall reading one article in the Chicago Trib or Sun-Times about it.
Could this be effecting the numbers? If I’m hiring three people for 60 hours that could equal a manager we let go at 50 hours salaried.
Here from the link is the monthly unemployment rate since 1/09:
IMN a stats expert, but I would characterize the current downward trend
as slight, choppy, and no sign whatever that we are finally pulling out of
the Great Recession.
Get back with me after the rate declines for about 10/12 months AND
when it hits 6.9%
