But magicians at New York Times try to spin dismal May jobs report anyway
Patriot Post — No Good Jobs in the May Jobs Report
The only jobs added to Barack Obama’s economy in May were the ones created by government regulation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released what Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey calls the worst report in five years. Indeed, the numbers are bad: Only 38,000 jobs were added in May. The number of Americans who are doing part-time work when they want a full-time position increased by almost a half million. The percentage of Americans who are gainfully employed shrunk by 0.2 points and now only 62.6% of the population is holding down a job. That last statistic is why BLS could spin the numbers to say the unemployment rate declined to 4.7%.
According to BLS data, the lone industry to grow in May was the health care industry — an industry that’s growing only because ObamaCare regulations are forcing Americans to spend more of their money in the industry. Ahead of the jobs report, Obama visited Elkhart, Indiana, to tout his seven years of bringing a statist touch to the economy. It was from Elkhart in 2009 that Obama argued for a stimulus bill to flood the well-connected businesses of the nation with cash. Friday’s jobs report is a reminder of just how lackluster the “recovery” has been, thanks to his policies.
The ray of hope in the jobs report is that wages increased by five cents in May, so the average hourly wage is $25.59 an hour. Wages are still slowly growing, which might increase consumer spending, which might help revive the economy. But GDP grew just 0.5% in the first quarter of 2016, and this jobs report hints that the second will be equally anemic.
From the Wall Street Journal
Hiring Slows Sharply, Workforce Dropouts Spike (excerpt) (bold emphasis ours)
WASHINGTON—U.S. companies hired at the slowest pace in more than five years in May and nearly half a million people dropped out of the labor force, clouding the outlook for Federal Reserve officials ahead of their policy meeting this month.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 38,000 in May, the weakest performance since September 2010, the Labor Department said Friday, missing the estimate of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal by over 100,000.
Revisions showed employers added a combined 59,000 fewer jobs in April and March than previously estimated. Together, May’s weak job growth and the revisions bring the average monthly job gains in the past three months to 116,000, a sharp slowdown from the average 219,000 growth over the prior 12 months.
“Not even a magician can take this number and make it sound good,” said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial.
But that won’t stop the New York Times
The Jobs Report Is Not Quite as Terrible as It Looks
The latest employment report — typically the most timely and accurate measure of the state of the business cycle — suggests that the economy is slowing. Employers added only 38,000 jobs in May, and revisions suggest that they created 59,000 fewer …
The NYT article refers to the data comprising the report as being “noisy.” Of course they are able to hear and speak Obama-ese And, of course, their hearing aids and tongues are tied when it comes to presentation of conservative critiques.
R Mall
