March’s unemployment numbers were mediocre enough to be open to any number of interpretations. Republicans see evidence that the President’s policies have taken us off track. Obama just called it another bump in the road. Here are two reasons to despair and two reasons to celebrate about the latest data:
Economy
Is It Safe for Ben Bernanke to Visit Texas Yet?
If it’s true, as Rick Perry said, that the Federal Reserve was juicing the economy as part of a “treasonous” plot to re-elect Barack Obama, then the plot seems to have, er, thinned. One reason for the Dow’s big fall yesterday was …
Obama’s ‘Stealth Stimulus’ Renewed
Back in December of 2010 when Congress was faced with the imminent expiration of the Bush tax cuts, Democrats and Republicans made a pretty straight-forward tradeoff. President Obama would allow extended lower rates on top-tier income, anathema to liberals, in order to secure a moderately sized economic booster shot. The “Stealthy …
What Will Mitt Romney Talk About if the Economy Gets Better?
For the better part of two years, Mitt Romney has been relentless. “Four years ago, candidate Obama came to Nevada, promising to help,” he said in his victory speech after the Nevada caucuses on Saturday night. “Today, Nevada unemployment is over 12%, home values have plummeted, and Nevada’s foreclosure rate is the highest in the nation …
January Jobs Report: Good News for the Economy, Bad News for the Pessimists
Some Obama opponents are struggling to find a cloud in the silver lining of January’s jobs numbers, which estimated that there was a 243,000-job boost and a big drop in the unemployment rate, from 8.5% to 8.3%, last month. …
The Most Important Number Update: Not Quite Good News For Obama, Yet
A couple of weeks back, I explained the historic importance of economic growth, and more particularly disposable income growth, in predicting presidential election results. When incomes are rising, incumbent parties tend to get reelected. When they are static or falling, incumbent parties tend to lose.
On Monday, the Bureau of …
November Job Numbers: What Are We Missing?
Obama and the Imperceptible Recovery
Friday’s jobs report offered yet more evidence of an infuriatingly glacial recovery. The U.S. economy added 80,000 jobs in October, nudging unemployment down one tenth of a percent to 9.0%. Economic minds wiser than mine observed …
The Real Debate: 2012 and Beyond
The New York Times op-ed page has two excellent columns today, by Tom Friedman and Ross Douthat that should define the most important national debate in the coming year–about the role of banks (Friedman) and the government (Douthat) in our economic future. Should, but probably won’t, because the national IQ tends to plummet in election …
Class Warfare: The Middle Class Is Losing
Peggy Noon today picks up a theme, recently invoked by David Brooks, which has become a relentless Republican talking point on the presidential stump: Barack Obama is a divider or, as Newt Gingrich inimitably put it to a crowd in Davenport, Iowa, which I report in my print column this week: “The President is a sincere believer in class …
The Unemployed Aren’t Victims of Discrimination. They’re Victims of a Lousy Economy.
It will not surprise my loyal fans—Hey, Dad!—that I like President Obama’s jobs bill. It’s a second stimulus, and when I haven’t been flacking the first, I’ve been kvetching for more. When unemployment is 9% and federal borrowing is practically free, it’s time to pay construction workers who need jobs to fix schools that …
Census Data Show Poverty’s Creep, Lasting Effects of Recession
The Census Bureau’s Tuesday report that nearly 46.2 million Americans — one in six citizens — live in poverty shouldn’t be entirely surprising given that economic conditions have continued to worsen in the more than two years since the Great Recession officially ended.
The Gaping Hole in Obama’s Economic Plan: Housing
Obama’s plan for boosting the economy may seem huge—he proposed $447 billion in tax breaks and spending in his speech on Thursday night—but according to some economists, none of it will work until the problem that caused the …