{"id":1432,"date":"2010-05-08T02:32:24","date_gmt":"2010-05-08T09:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=1432"},"modified":"2010-05-08T02:32:24","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T09:32:24","slug":"jobs-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/08\/jobs-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Jobs Up!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is good news, better than expected.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"jobs\"<\/a> Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the U.S. economy added a better than expected 290,000 jobs last month<\/a>. The BLS also revised the jobs number for both February and March upwards, putting both of those months into the black in terms of job creation. (Due to 805,00 discouraged workers \u201cfeeling better about their prospects<\/a>\u201d and resuming their search for work, the unemployment rate actually ticked up to 9.9 percent.)<\/p>\n

The continued turnaround of the labor market is a strong sign that the economic stimulus package passed last year is doing what it is supposed to. But today\u2019s report also refutes one of the favorite Republican talking points about the stimulus, which is that it only preserved government jobs:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Gov. Tim Pawlenty<\/a> (R-MN): These are mostly government jobs, you know<\/span>\u2026The idea that government grows the economy when all they really do is extract money from taxpayers, bring it into the bureaucracy and put it back out into the economy on a political agenda is not growth.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) [Faux Noise delinked]: The stimulus bill has done \u201clittle or nothing\u201d to stimulate the private sector. \u201cIt probably did save a lot of state government jobs.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) [Faux Noise delinked]: State government has benefited by the stimulus package, because it\u2019s poured in billions of dollars. The problem is we need private sector jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Rep. John Boehner<\/a> (R-OH): Most of the so-called jobs that have been saved or created are government jobs<\/span>, even though the President promised that 90 percent of these jobs would be private sector jobs.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Rep. Eric Cantor<\/a> (R-VA): We\u2019ve got to begin focusing not just on jobs, but on private sector jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the GOP should be pleased to note that, of the 290,000 jobs created in April, 231,000<\/a> of them were in the private sector. The private sector has actually added 523,000 new jobs in 2010.<\/p>\n

his includes 44,000 manufacturing jobs, which is the most manufacturing jobs added to the U.S. economy since August, 1998<\/a>\u2026 [emphasis original]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

The GOP\u2019s worst fears are being realized.  The economy is improving.  I have long contended that the GOP fiddled while America plunged.  Knowing they were on their way out of power, they used the occasion to transfer as much wealth to the rich as possible.  They figured that the bigger a mess they could leave for Obama, the better opportunity they would have to blame Democrats for the effects of the GOP\u2019s own actions and use that a a springboard to return to power.  But we\u2019re still not out of the woods.  Ed Schultz and economist, Peter Morici, explain:<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While they did a great job, they could have explained the unemployment statistics better. Let me quote myself from April 3<\/a>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"Tom122007_Painting_Painting\"<\/a> …Expect the GOP to harp on the high official unemployment rate.  There is little likelihood of significant gains in that benchmark this year, but to cut through the propaganda, you need to understand the mechanism.  The rate makes no distinction between full and part time positions.  As the economy improves, it will be easier and less expensive for employers to upgrade part time employees to full time than to hire and train new employees.  While this will improve the lots workers, that improvement will not be reflected in the unemployment rate.  Also, the rate does not count so-called \u2018discouraged workers\u2019, whose unemployment  have expired.  Although not counted, there are millions still seeking employment.  When these people find jobs, their employment does not improve the unemployment rate\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yesterday, you got to see an example of \u201cWhen I\u2019m wrong, I say so\u201d.  When I\u2019m right I say so too.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is good news, better than expected. Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the U.S. economy added a better than expected 290,000 jobs last month. The BLS also revised the jobs number for both February and March upwards, putting both of those months into the black in terms of job creation. (Due to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}