Election 2012: It’s the Jobless Numbers, Stupid

There is at least some good news on the employment front after the November numbers were released this morning.

But, of course, you expected that. The closer we get to 2012 and a White House reelection bid is the more you’ll see steadily lower unemployment numbers.  No one is saying the Department of Labor is cooking up anything – but, the pressure is on the squeeze out as much good news as possible and give the spin.

Here’s White House economic adviser Alan Krueger’s piece on it:

Today’s employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, but the pace of improvement is still not fast enough given the large job losses from the recession that began in December 2007.  

Private sector payrolls increased by 140,000 in November and overall payroll employment rose by 120,000. The unemployment rate fell 0.4 percentage point to 8.6 percent, the lowest unemployment rate since March 2009.  About half of the drop in unemployment in the household survey was due to a decline in the labor force (-315,000) and about half to employment growth (+278,000).  Despite adverse shocks that have created headwinds for economic growth, the economy has added private sector jobs for 21 straight months, for a total of 2.9 million jobs over that period.  Nonetheless, we need faster growth to put more Americans back to work.

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State-by-state figures are usually released later in the month.

The federal information bodes well for President Obama on the campaign trail. But, it could be a little too soon to tout this good news. Some Americans have been unemployed for several months (43 percent of the unemployed have been jobless for 27 weeks or longer). They will want to see month after month of solid decreases in the unemployment rate to believe the hype. Plus, unemployed people have to really start getting jobs! Nobody cares about good news if it isn’t happening to them.

Of course, the 8.6 percent rate does not include those who have completely given up on looking for work. Never be fooled by the official federal government figures. There are far more people without work than we are being led to believe.

To check the federal unemployment rate for yourself at any time, click here.

– Special from PruneJuiceMedia

Matt E. Stevens is the creator and chief blogger of Prune Juice Media. The site takes a sarcastic and informative look at the issues of the day – namely politics and current affairs. The goal of the site is to share information and make people laugh, or at least think. Matt is a contributing writer for Politic365.

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