Jobs Report - Are We Screwed When the Census is Over?

[GannonFan]

Just saw the latest jobs report come out. On the positive side, the economy added 431k jobs last month, an increase over the 290k added in April, making it the biggest month on month increase in the past 10 years. Unemployment even dropped from 9.9% to 9.7%.

On the negative side, the net number of government jobs that make up that number (once you add in temporary Census jobs, which totalled 411k, and take out the 21k of other government jobs that were lost) is 390k, or about 91% of the total jobs added last month. The private sector only added 41k jobs last month.

So what happens when the Census ends (assuming we do end it - maybe we should consider an ongoing Census as a way to keep people "employed")? I mean, there is an amazing number of people being hired onto the Census rolls and there can't be enough work to keep these people employed much longer. Are we going to see a severe hit to the economy when these people get tossed back into the unemployment pool and is that going to translate into market-wide worry that makes other people pull back as well?

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/04/news/ec ... htm?hpt=T2

[Rob Iola]

I worry about how the census workers are recruited - perhaps by "community organizers" - and how that impacts their counting abilities...

[TheDancinMonarch]

So what happens when the Census ends (assuming we do end it - maybe we should consider an ongoing Census as a way to keep people "employed")? I mean, there is an amazing number of people being hired onto the Census rolls and there can't be enough work to keep these people employed much longer.

We keep them on as Block Commissars.

[ASUG8]

I don't know much about the employment numbers, so I'll ask - are seasonal or temporary workers (i.e. census workers) counted the same as full time workers?

[GannonFan]

I don't know much about the employment numbers, so I'll ask - are seasonal or temporary workers (i.e. census workers) counted the same as full time workers?

For this number, yes. There are other numbers that look at underemployed (i.e. temporary workers like these) and there are numbers that look at total unemployment (the normal figure just counts people looking for work - it doesn't count people who have just given up and have basically left the labor pool - that number is still up around 16%-17%).

[Skjellyfetti]

Eh, I think the trend is the important thing. Especially when you consider we were on a collision course with Great Depression II 14 months ago.

[Baldy]

Eh, I think the trend is the important thing. Especially when you consider we were on a collision course with Great Depression II 14 months ago.

The important thing is that the government is creating more jobs than the private sector, and that is not a good trend. In fact, it's unsustainable.

[Skjellyfetti]

The important thing is that the government is creating more jobs than the private sector, and that is not a good trend. In fact, it's unsustainable.

And the government jobs created by the stimulus bill and the census aren't intended to last forever.

The stimulus jobs are temporary jobs that will hopefully get us through until the private sector decides to start hiring.

[Franks Tanks]

The important thing is that the government is creating more jobs than the private sector, and that is not a good trend. In fact, it's unsustainable.

And the government jobs created by the stimulus bill and the census aren't intended to last forever.

The stimulus jobs are temporary jobs that will hopefully get us through until the private sector decides to start hiring.

What are these stimilus jobs you speak of?

[Baldy]

The important thing is that the government is creating more jobs than the private sector, and that is not a good trend. In fact, it's unsustainable.

And the government jobs created by the stimulus bill and the census aren't intended to last forever.

The stimulus jobs are temporary jobs that will hopefully get us through until the private sector decides to start hiring.

Unfortunately, in these uncertain times, that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

[GannonFan]

The important thing is that the government is creating more jobs than the private sector, and that is not a good trend. In fact, it's unsustainable.

And the government jobs created by the stimulus bill and the census aren't intended to last forever.

The stimulus jobs are temporary jobs that will hopefully get us through until the private sector decides to start hiring.

But a lot of the recent government spending (i.e. health care) is not temporary and will continue to go on. The real danger out there is the amount and level of government spending and what impact that will have on future decisions by the private sector to grow and add jobs. We've seen the impact of government spending growing too large versus GDP in European countries and while our growth numbers in terms of GDP are better than their's our growth numbers in terms of debt are worse - we're going to catch up to them soon unless we change course. And imposing further taxation on capital and restricting the credit supply further in an effort to generate revenue is not going to do the trick - in fact, that could end up hurting us long term. Keynesian economics in terms of how to reverse a recession has never had a good track record, and this current experiment in it is not going entirely well. When government invariably has to ratchet back the spending (assuming we are even able to - already the projected cuts in spending we had been promised with the health care bill have been pushed aside, making that program already more expensive than advertised and we haven't even really got into the meat of it yet) the question will be whether we see another economic reversal - we've got tons of people relying solely on government now and we have a pension nightmare approaching as well.

[Skjellyfetti]

Keynsian economics doesn't have a good track record of reversing recessions? Um, wow... this is why I have a hard time taking your "centrist" and "non-partisan hack" monikers seriously.

Baldy and the Citadel fans will come and post studies by the Heritage Foundation claiming otherwise... but, Keynesian economics got us out of the previous recessions we've had this last half century. Hell, even Reagan got us out of the recession in the 1970's and 80's with the help (and I'd argue he is MOST responsible for getting us out) of Paul Volcker following Keynesian principles.

Keynesian economics has an astounding track record.....

[OL FU]

Keynsian economics doesn't have a good track record of reversing recessions? Um, wow... this is why I have a hard time taking your "centrist" and "non-partisan hack" monikers seriously.

Baldy and the Citadel fans will come and post studies by the Heritage Foundation claiming otherwise... but, Keynesian economics got us out of the previous recessions we've had this last half century. Hell, even Reagan got us out of the recession in the 1970's and 80's with the help (and I'd argue he is MOST responsible for getting us out) of Paul Volcker following Keynesian principles.

Keynesian economics has an astounding track record.....

I believe most people refer to Keynes with respect to fiscal not monetary policy. Not that he didn't have to say something about both. But politicians can't do squat but bitch and applaud monetary policy (and neither can the rest of us) so they spend money which is the other side of Keynes that we discuss. And Government spending has not successfully lifted us out of a recession in this or the last two centurys with the exception of spending on world war II. And following WWII a combination of rebuilding the world, not competition and a relaxing of government work programs kept us alive.

Monetary policy cut inflation during Reagon's tour of duty. Monetary policy is holding our head above water at this point. You simply can't cut the interest rate any lower than it is.


On the other hand you are correct, an upward trend is certainly better than a downward trend. And leaving politics out of it, the problem is that the experts were predicting job growth between 500,000 and 700,000 which would have meant the private sector was creating jobs at a rate closer to the amount needed to start cutting unemployment. I am curious as to how the experts missed the damn number so bad.

[GannonFan]

Keynsian economics doesn't have a good track record of reversing recessions? Um, wow... this is why I have a hard time taking your "centrist" and "non-partisan hack" monikers seriously.

Baldy and the Citadel fans will come and post studies by the Heritage Foundation claiming otherwise... but, Keynesian economics got us out of the previous recessions we've had this last half century. Hell, even Reagan got us out of the recession in the 1970's and 80's with the help (and I'd argue he is MOST responsible for getting us out) of Paul Volcker following Keynesian principles.

Keynesian economics has an astounding track record.....

I believe most people refer to Keynes with respect to fiscal not monetary policy. Not that he didn't have to say something about both. But politicians can't do squat but bitch and applaud monetary policy (and neither can the rest of us) so they spend money which is the other side of Keynes that we discuss. And Government spending has not successfully lifted us out of a recession in this or the last two centurys with the exception of spending on world war II. And following WWII a combination of rebuilding the world, not competition and a relaxing of government work programs kept us alive.

Monetary policy cut inflation during Reagon's tour of duty. Monetary policy is holding our head above water at this point. You simply can't cut the interest rate any lower than it is.


On the other hand you are correct, an upward trend is certainly better than a downward trend. And leaving politics out of it, the problem is that the experts were predicting job growth between 500,000 and 700,000 which would have meant the private sector was creating jobs at a rate closer to the amount needed to start cutting unemployment. I am curious as to how the experts missed the damn number so bad.

Agreed. My stance has been fiscal responsibility, regardless of what you spend it on. If you spend within your means, great. When you get too far into deficit spending, for anything, it's a bad recipe. Keynes approach to economic recovery through massive government expenditures has frequently been proven to be a pipe dream. He said a lot of good stuff, but he couldn't have been more wrong there.

I think the experts were almost hoping for good numbers rather than really knowing them. At some point you hope this turns around, but to go from 200k private sector jobs added in one month to a tenth of that in the following month is not good. It's hard not to look at Europe right now and not see how the dangers there are easily transferrable to our situation if something doesn't change soon. Businesses are in a holding pattern right now and any steps forward are hesistant at best. Nothing we've done over the past 2 years (from the end of Bush's term to the start of Obama's) has really done anything to change the worrisome of the landscape.

[CitadelGrad]

Keynsian economics doesn't have a good track record of reversing recessions? Um, wow... this is why I have a hard time taking your "centrist" and "non-partisan hack" monikers seriously.

Baldy and the Citadel fans will come and post studies by the Heritage Foundation claiming otherwise... but, Keynesian economics got us out of the previous recessions we've had this last half century. Hell, even Reagan got us out of the recession in the 1970's and 80's with the help (and I'd argue he is MOST responsible for getting us out) of Paul Volcker following Keynesian principles.

Keynesian economics has an astounding track record.....

Keynesians are by definition not monetarists. Volker used monetary policy to drastically reduce inflation. In fact, that is what caused the recession of the early 80s. Not that I have a problem with that. Long-term inflation is a greater evil than a relatively short recession. However, if you think that it was Keynesian economics that ended that recession, you are either stupid or willfully ignorant. From what I know of you, it's probably both.

Exactly what Keynesian policies ended previous recessions. I hope you aren't going to try to tell me that government "stimulus" ended the early 90s recession.

[CitadelGrad]

And Government spending has not successfully lifted us out of a recession in this or the last two centurys with the exception of spending on world war II. And following WWII a combination of rebuilding the world, not competition and a relaxing of government work programs kept us alive.

You can't really make the argument that defense spending during WWII was stimulative in the sense that it was responsible for growing GDP. A couple of years ago an economist at Harvard by the name of Robert Barro did a study of defense spending from the beginning of 1942 through the end of 1944. He concluded that the spending produced an economic multiplier of about .8. Of course that money had to be spent, as we were fighting a war of national survival. The point is that government spending doesn't produce sustainable GDP growth.

[Ivytalk]

JellyBelly strives manfully (?) to defend the decrepit Obama record in private sector job creation. Gotta admire his moxie!

[BDKJMU]

Census Worker Claims Job Numbers Are Being Inflated
""What they do is hire you, they train you like a few weeks -- 35, 40 hours of training and give you six hours of productive work and lay you off." a former Census named "Maria" tells FOX News. "Maria" further explains they rehire you so it counts as a new job."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ ... lated.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So Obama is now even fudging the Census job numbers

[GannonFan]

Um, wow... this is why I have a hard time taking your "centrist" and "non-partisan hack" monikers seriously.

Of course I'm non-partisan - both parties have recently horrid records when it comes to fiscal responsibility. I tend to criticize the Dems more right now because they happen to be in power in both branches of government that matter fiscally. And unfortunately they haven't learned from the mistakes the Republicans made before them. A partisan would've been blind to the fiscal misdeeds when his/her party did them and then lambaste the other party when they did the same. I'm sensing I can put you in that category, eh?

[Skjellyfetti]

A partisan would've been blind to the fiscal misdeeds when his/her party did them and then lambaste the other party when they did the same. I'm sensing I can put you in that category, eh?

I'm not blind to the fiscal misdeeds of "my" party. I rarely ever defend congressional Democrats. I'm a big Obama supporter... and for some reason everyone on here assumes that makes me a huge Democrat. Not true.

[Baldy]

A partisan would've been blind to the fiscal misdeeds when his/her party did them and then lambaste the other party when they did the same. I'm sensing I can put you in that category, eh?

I'm not blind to the fiscal misdeeds of "my" party. I rarely ever defend congressional Democrats. I'm a big Obama supporter... and for some reason everyone on here assumes that makes me a huge Democrat. Not true.

In your eyes, Obama hasn't had any fiscal misdeeds?

[D1B]

I worry about how the census workers are recruited - perhaps by "community organizers" - and how that impacts their counting abilities...

Conks

[travelinman67]

A partisan would've been blind to the fiscal misdeeds when his/her party did them and then lambaste the other party when they did the same. I'm sensing I can put you in that category, eh?

I'm not blind to the fiscal misdeeds of "my" party. I rarely ever defend congressional Democrats. I'm a big Obama supporter... and for some reason everyone on here assumes that makes me a huge Democrat. Not true.

Self-validating by dishonesty.

+1

[AZGrizFan]

A partisan would've been blind to the fiscal misdeeds when his/her party did them and then lambaste the other party when they did the same. I'm sensing I can put you in that category, eh?

I'm not blind to the fiscal misdeeds of "my" party. I rarely ever defend congressional Democrats. I'm a big Obama supporter... and for some reason everyone on here assumes that makes me a huge Democrat. Not true.

That might be the funniest thing you've ever posted.

[CID1990]

A partisan would've been blind to the fiscal misdeeds when his/her party did them and then lambaste the other party when they did the same. I'm sensing I can put you in that category, eh?

I'm not blind to the fiscal misdeeds of "my" party. I rarely ever defend congressional Democrats. I'm a big Obama supporter... and for some reason everyone on here assumes that makes me a huge Democrat. Not true.

No, it just makes you willfully ignorant instead of stupid. In many ways that's worse.