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Unemployment at 8.6%

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The republicans made a calculated gamble, and they may have lost.

But if they had supported Obama and the economic situation would have dramatically improved they potentially could have been marginalized for an extreme period of time. Their only hope was a policy of obstruction.
 
Via said:
The republicans made a calculated gamble, and they may have lost.

But if they had supported Obama and the economic situation would have dramatically improved they potentially could have been marginalized for an extreme period of time. Their only hope was a policy of obstruction.
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I wouldn't be shocked if by the end of the day, if they haven't already, the right wing sites/pundits use this to validate blocking all tax increases...
 
This seems inconsistent with the job report numbers we've seen over the last few months. Unfortunately, I expect it jump back up in coming months.
 
WHAMPOM said:
November employment stats equal Christmas hiring? RI_I_I_IGHT!!
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Retailers, shippers, everybody in the chain start hiring people in November to deal with christmas if not a little earlier. Their busy season starts in November.

Look to the number to be abysmal again in Janurary, it's the Obama economy in full swing. Not to mention how many hundreds of thousands have simply given up looking because of Obama's crippling crush.
 
IceBergSLiM said:
why do they still report this? Don't they always comeback a few months later and say oh wait its actually worse than we reported?
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I believe that in the last two months job growth was later revised slightly upward. It does SEEM like the situation is always revised downward, but not always.
 
Obama white house...

Well, we know my policies are crushing Americans spirit and the economy, just as we had planned. But I need to give a little boost to holiday spending, too much focus is on my constant failures. Quick! Release some cooked numbers and don't count folks simply giving up, I need those people on the government dole for a constant supply of voters. We can revise them next month after they have spent on Christmas.

Brilliant Mr. President!
*echoes from his czars and cabinet, Obama looks high, stares down his nose and smiles*
 
"Retailers, shippers, everybody in the chain start hiring people in November to deal with christmas if not a little earlier."
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IIRC, seasonal hiring estimates were something like 500,000 (?), but don't know which month's employment report that should be spread out over.

The recent revision of 3Q GDP was apparently due to lack of inventory restocking (retailers fearing bad news on tv and pulling back businesses).

I read somewhere that Black Friday inventory had to be ordered 6 months ago (May-ish, which, IIRC, was before news of potential double dip recession in housing had started to take hold and Greece was not plastered on tv).

Retailers are apparently using just in time inventory management, so Fedex or UPS, via express shipments from China, may give some indication of the legs this Christmas buying season might have.

I think someone else said crunch time for retailers will be about a week or two before Christmas, so I guess time will tell.
 
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MovingTarget said:
Not really. We should really be using the U6 unemployment numbers instead of the U3.
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Which is funny because when under Bush unemployment was 5%, the media was doing stories on how "real unemployment" (i.e. U6) and "underemployment" were actually much, much worse.

Is U6 really a better number though? All such numbers are guesstimates, but U3 at least has more hard data (unemployment registration) to back it up. U6 depends on small samples of employers and household surveys, does it not? I'd think that a harder number that everyone understands is understated is probably better than a number which might be closer to the real number, but is also much more subject to gaming and accusations of gaming.
 
werepossum said:
Which is funny because when under Bush unemployment was 5%, the media was doing stories on how "real unemployment" (i.e. U6) and "underemployment" were actually much, much worse.

Is U6 really a better number though? All such numbers are guesstimates, but U3 at least has more hard data (unemployment registration) to back it up. U6 depends on small samples of employers and household surveys, does it not? I'd think that a harder number that everyone understands is understated is probably better than a number which might be closer to the real number, but is also much more subject to gaming and accusations of gaming.
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The real numbers to look at are the payroll numbers in the jobs reports.

edit: We have added about 1.6 million private sector jobs so far in 2011. We would need 1.4 million just to keep up with population growth.
 
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spidey07 said:
Retailers, shippers, everybody in the chain start hiring people in November to deal with christmas if not a little earlier. Their busy season starts in November.

Look to the number to be abysmal again in Janurary, it's the Obama economy in full swing. Not to mention how many hundreds of thousands have simply given up looking because of Obama's crippling crush.
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Nice try, but the numbers are seasonally adjusted.
 
IceBergSLiM said:
why do they still report this? Don't they always comeback a few months later and say oh wait its actually worse than we reported?
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Good news encourages Christmas spending. The real jobs numbers won't be revealed until after the grace period on store returns has ended.
 
werepossum said:
Which is funny because when under Bush unemployment was 5%, the media was doing stories on how "real unemployment" (i.e. U6) and "underemployment" were actually much, much worse.

Is U6 really a better number though? All such numbers are guesstimates, but U3 at least has more hard data (unemployment registration) to back it up. U6 depends on small samples of employers and household surveys, does it not? I'd think that a harder number that everyone understands is understated is probably better than a number which might be closer to the real number, but is also much more subject to gaming and accusations of gaming.
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Are you saying that the media doesn't talk about this anymore now that Obama is president?

I'm not sure what you watch, but I hear stories on "underemployment" on a weekly basis, even from "liberal" MSNBC.
 
WHAMPOM said:
November employment stats equal Christmas hiring? RI_I_I_IGHT!!
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Christmas rush is not the time to train new employees. You want them up to speed by Thanksgiving.

If the growth doesn't build momentum it could take a decade to recover.
 
werepossum said:
Which is funny because when under Bush unemployment was 5%, the media was doing stories on how "real unemployment" (i.e. U6) and "underemployment" were actually much, much worse.
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They've repeatedly reported that as well under Obama. In fact, every article I read that discusses a positive like this month qualifies it with about 5 negative observations. I see no material difference in the reporting.
 
the DRIZZLE said:
The real numbers to look at are the payroll numbers in the jobs reports.

edit: We have added about 1.6 million private sector jobs so far in 2011. We would need 1.4 million just to keep up with population growth.
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Very good point. Still, even if it's just a reduction in the overall unemployment situation, a net gain in jobs still beats a net reduction in jobs.

Via said:
Are you saying that the media doesn't talk about this anymore now that Obama is president?

I'm not sure what you watch, but I hear stories on "underemployment" on a weekly basis, even from "liberal" MSNBC.
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I don't think I've seen a report since Obama took office saying that the U3 isn't the "real" unemployment number, although yes, I've seen stories about underemployment. That's subjective though.
 
werepossum said:
I believe that in the last two months job growth was later revised slightly upward. It does SEEM like the situation is always revised downward, but not always.
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September: 158,000 -> 210,000
October: 80,000->100,000

I think the September increase is more than slight. It's not that common to have revisions of over 50K in either direction.
 
This is because of republican saying no to everything. People feel confident again because tax cuts and obama didnt do anything to make this happen.
 
spidey07 said:
Look to the number to be abysmal again in Janurary, it's the Obama economy in full swing. Not to mention how many hundreds of thousands have simply given up looking because of Obama's crippling crush.
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This could be a fun quote later on.
 
OutHouse said:
seniors are the republicans base? so only seniors vote repbublican? wtf are you smoking.
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You might not know it, but this is the same guy who says unions do not routinely fight for increased pay and benefits for their members. Yeah...quite a fantasy land he lives in. It is not a surprise he would say something like that.
 
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