Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? Message Board

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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It?

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To: calgal who wrote (138824)	7/20/2012 11:57:12 PM
From: calgal	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) of 224757

he Political Meaning of Friday's Jobs Report 2:13 PM, May 29, 2012 • By JAY COST Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its first estimate of jobs created during the month of May. The consensus estimate is for about 150,000 total jobs to have been added to the economy, barely enough to keep up with population growth and certainly insufficient to reduce the jobless rate in any meaningful way. As has been the norm for the last year or so, the media will interpret the report with an eye to the election. In a lot of respects, that is a valid thing to do, but there is a greater context to bear in mind. The following chart tracks the percentage of jobs gained or lost during presidential tenures dating back to Dwight Eisenhower. In particular, we’re looking at changes in job growth during the first term of presidents who ran for reelection. The lesson I draw from this graph is that the great American jobs machine has ground to a virtual halt in the 21st century. Put aside the media hoopla over any given jobs report and the insta-analysis that invariably follows, this is the enduring trend. And note well that it is a bipartisan problem. Democrats and Republicans both share political blame for this, at least in view of the independent vote in the middle of the country. The challenge for the Romney campaign is to convince the country that he can do better than what we have seen, not just during the Obama tenure but really the last decade. The last 12 years have been marked by stagnant wages, tepid employment growth, and an increasing sense of vulnerability on the part of the middle class.

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