More Bogus Numbers From Powerline
Earlier I noted that John Hinderaker’s “35,000” number was bogus, and now it is the rather lackluster job numbers from the Payroll Survey and some bogus spin from Paul Mirengoff.
In his second paragraph, Kos refers to “the jobless recovery” of the Bush years. That’s the jobless recovery that has produced roughly 200,000 new jobs per month for at least a year and a half, except during the immediate aftermath of Katrina.
As I have noted before 200,000 is better than none, but by historical standards it is quite anemic. This picture of the data from the BLS really drives the point home,
Also, I’m not sure where Hinderaker Mirengoff is getting that 200,000 number. Taking the last 18 months of data I get about 165,000 jobs/month (this is for Nov. 2004 through April 2006–and taking Oct 2004 through March 2006 gives us 176,000). That is quite a rounding error.
Take out Sept & Nov as Katrina adjustment and you may get the averge he does — I haven’t actually done it.
Ummm…no that doesn’t work either…at least not without rounding up about 20k.
Maybe there was a substantial downward revision in one of the months that I’ve missed. Finding that though is more work than I want to spend on their propaganda.
The important thing to keep in mind is that the population increases 150,000 per month. Job growth below that number is actually net job loss.
Precisely Elrod. When you take that into account the 200,000/month looks so-so. Factor in that it is really about 165,000 to 175,000 and it is actually pretty piss poor.