Let the good times roll! -- 337,000 new jobs in October

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by JohnT

These aren't the kind of jobs Clinton helped to bring in.

Yes, Clinton "brought in" (cute phrase that!) untenable, overpaid jobs like web-designing, IPO-merchandising, and the like... all jobs that disappeared as soon as the bubble burst.

Yep.

As long as you don't piss all the money away on champagne and caviar, short term bubble jobs suck a bit less than long term jobs wearing a blue vest.

The Dem's mantra about Clinton's job creation way overstates the case.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
I presume that van Buren also presided over a net job loss as he forced the country into its worst depression ever by trying to balance the budget and pursue tight money, just as Kerry advised, during a recession.

Things worked a bit differently on a gold standard. We're not about to have a liquidity crisis any time soon.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Sorry, Herbert. The record is still yours...

Not yet, but probably will still be. Bush just needs 50K more people to get jobs in the next 2.5 months to beat Herbie, assuming the economy doesn't nose dive before Jan 20.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Bushie couldn't even succeed at beating Herbie's record.

[PLATO]

Let's take a look at the hard numbers:

1.) Professional and business services added 97,000 jobs in October (49,000 permanent-Typical that about half would be temporary). The permanent jobs are usually good paying, white collar, and have benefits.

2.) Education and Health services added 62,000 jobs. Again, these are usually good paying with benefits. (admittedly, some lower end health care jobs are not that great paying, but do usually beat retail)

3.) The Financial activities sector added 17,000 jobs in October. These are also usually good paying jobs with benefits.

4.) Manufacturing remained flat, as it has since May. Since February, this sector has added 82,000 jobs.

Hardly a "doom and gloom" performance. Perhaps some on the left will realize that the economy is growing or stable in nearly all sectors. To say that we are only adding low paying jobs is to simply be uninformed.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by PLATO
Let's take a look at the hard numbers:

...

Hardly a "doom and gloom" performance. Perhaps some on the left will realize that the economy is growing or stable in nearly all sectors. To say that we are only adding low paying jobs is to simply be uninformed.

While your final statement is undoubtedly true, it is untrue to assume that all those numbers mean good paying jobs. Most manufacturing increases in the US are light manufacturing, which tend to be rather low paying. I've done light manufacturing work, and I never got much over minimum wage.

In business, education, and the financial sectors, a lot of grunt work is done by underpaid, over-worked drones. So while it's true that many of those jobs are good paying, with good benefits, the numbers themselves don't say very much since we don't know which are good jobs and which are sucky jobs.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


While your final statement is undoubtedly true, it is untrue to assume that all those numbers mean good paying jobs. Most manufacturing increases in the US are light manufacturing, which tend to be rather low paying. I've done light manufacturing work, and I never got much over minimum wage.

In business, education, and the financial sectors, a lot of grunt work is done by underpaid, over-worked drones. So while it's true that many of those jobs are good paying, with good benefits, the numbers themselves don't say very much since we don't know which are good jobs and which are sucky jobs.

Undoubtedly it is a mixture of both. The point I was trying to illustrate is that the job growth is broad. The economy will never add just low or just high paying jobs. The sectors that do add jobs are telling however. In manufacturing, light manufaturing tends to support heavy manufacturing to a degree. I think it would be safe to assume that if a particular sector is showing growth that there is growth throughout the sector. The true analysis of wha percentages for each subsector would be telling however.

[el freako]

Originally posted by Dauphin


Is that (potentially) working population?

The demographics would partially skew comparison up or down if the growths were different in respect of the retired/young vs middle population.

It is total population, and yes the demographics would skew it a bit in europe's favour - the reason I chose that data was for ease of understanding as I have found, to my cost, that many people will ignore or denigrate more complex data that tries to give a better picture.

The best data (I believe) is the change in the employment/working age population (those aged 16-65) ratio - here the difference is smaller but you can still see the change.

Change in employment/working age population ratio:
between 1982/84 and 1992/94 and between 1992/94 and 2002/04:

United States: +9%, -1%
Euro Zone: +1%, +8%
Japan: +5%, -1%
Britian: +5%, +6%
Canada: +4%, +8%
Australia: +4%, +8%

(source: OECD economic outlook No. 75, Annex Table 21)

The shift is even more marked if you look at the labour force participation rate (workforce/working age population).
10 years ago the US was 7th in the 30-member OECD (behind Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland).
Today it has slipped to 14th place, being overtaken by Australia, Canada, Germany , Japan, New Zealand, Portugal and Britian.

[DanS]

Well, the US labor force participation rate is about at its historic highs and is still about 5 points higher than the Eurozone rate. I guess I don't see anything profound going on.

Regarding the composition of new jobs, some are better than others. It's also true that the job market has to be growing a while before workers can buck for more pay. Even if somebody isn't getting paid in a new job quite what he used to in his old job, that doesn't mean he's necessarily in a worse position when you factor in the cyclical nature of the job market.

[laurentius]

From www.povertyusa.com


Poverty USA: The Working Poor

One out of every three Americans living in poverty held a job during 2002 - 37.9 percent or 9 million out of everyone living in poverty - yet, despite working, could not earn enough to afford the basic necessities, like food, housing and healthcare. (U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States: 2002, Current Population Reports, September 2003.)

Of all Americans living and working in poverty, 2.6 million, or 11.2 percent, held full-time jobs that did not pay enough to raise them above the official "poverty threshold." (U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States: 2002, Current Population Reports, September 2003.)

The working poor in America grew poorer during 2002, with incomes dipping farther below the poverty line than in any other year since 1979, the first year for which such data is available. The average amount by which people living in poverty fell below the federal "threshold" was $2,813 in 2002. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 2003).

A single parent of two young children working full-time in minimum wage job for a year would make $10,712 before taxes - an wage more than $1,000 below the poverty threshold set by the federal government. (U.S. Department of Labor; U.S. Census Bureau.)

About 40 percent of poor single-parent, working mothers who paid for child care paid at least half of their income for child care; an additional 25 percent of these families paid between 40 and 50 percent of their incomes for child care. (Child Trends, 2001.)

While the Census figures reveal a significant number of Americans living in poverty, many experts feel that the measures used by the federal government drastically underestimate the real scale of poverty in America - primarily because the official poverty thresholds are considered "too low." Many experts believe a more realistic poverty threshold for a family of four would be in the area of $30,000 a year - and that a more accurate estimate of the poverty rate in America would be 30% of the total population. (Economic Policy Institute, 2001.)

Opportunities for those trying to work their way out of poverty are dwindling; by September 2003, 2.1 million American jobless workers - nearly a quarter of the total unemployed population - had been out of work for half a year or more - the highest level in 20 years. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October 2003.)

The american way

[Spiffor]

And it's coming in Europe.

[DanS]

This isn't a social safety net policy thread.

[laurentius]

Nice DanSing

Okay, perhaps not. Still having more jobs isnt worth a news flash if it doesnt bring new money into peoples pockets. And btw, governments particularily in the Soviet era were masters of creating useless jobs just to make the statistics look nicer. For example we dont have baggers(the people who pack your groceries) in Europe.

[DanS]

The vast majority of those 450,000 new jobs brought new money into people's pockets. Not sure what you're talking about. There is no negative side to these figures. That's the point.

[JohnT]

Ooh, ooh, let me try!

"The negative is in their loss of vast amounts of potential earnings, Dan. Yes, they might have been making $0 and now making $40k, but back before they were laid off they were making $50k... so they are worse off with the new job than they were without it. And it's Bush's fault!"

How'd I do guys? Che? Sava?