{"id":132401,"date":"2012-11-30T10:00:45","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T15:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=132401"},"modified":"2012-12-26T16:03:16","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T21:03:16","slug":"the-truth-about-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth About Jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> Truth About Jobs<\/a> by Paul Krugman in The New York Times.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Friday\u2019s better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right \u2014 and we\u2019re not just talking fringe figures \u2014 was to cry conspiracy.<\/p>\n

Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the \u201cB.L.S. truthers\u201d was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obama\u2019s re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.<\/p>\n

It was nonsense, of course. Job numbers are prepared by professional civil servants, at an agency that currently has no political appointees. But then maybe Mr. Welch \u2014 under whose leadership G.E. reported remarkably smooth earnings growth, with none of the short-term fluctuations you might have expected (fluctuations that reappeared under his successor) \u2014 doesn\u2019t know how hard it would be to cook the jobs data.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the methods the bureau uses are public \u2014 and anyone familiar with the data understands that they are \u201cnoisy,\u201d that especially good (or bad) months will be reported now and then as a simple consequence of statistical randomness. And that in turn means that you shouldn\u2019t put much weight on any one month\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

In that case, however, what is the somewhat longer-term trend? Is the U.S. employment picture getting better? Yes, it is.<\/p>\n

Some background: the monthly employment report is based on two surveys. One asks a random sample of employers how many people are on their payroll. The other asks a random sample of households whether their members are working or looking for work. And if you look at the trend over the past year or so, both surveys suggest a labor market that is gradually on the mend, with job creation consistently exceeding growth in the working-age population.<\/p>\n

On the employer side, the current numbers say that over the past year the economy added 150,000 jobs a month, and revisions will probably push that number up significantly. That\u2019s well above the 90,000 or so added jobs per month that we need to keep up with population. (This number used to be higher, but underlying work force growth has dropped off sharply now that many baby boomers are reaching retirement age.)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the household survey produces estimates of both the number of Americans employed and the number unemployed, defined as people who are seeking work but don\u2019t currently have a job. The eye-popping number from Friday\u2019s report was a sudden drop in the unemployment rate to 7.8 percent from 8.1 percent, but as I said, you shouldn\u2019t put too much emphasis on one month\u2019s number. The more important point is that unemployment has been on a sustained downward trend.<\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t that just because people have given up looking for work, and hence no longer count as unemployed? Actually, no. It\u2019s true that the employment-population ratio \u2014 the percentage of adults with jobs \u2014 has been more or less flat for the past year. But remember those aging baby boomers: the fraction of American adults who are in their prime working years is falling fast. Once you take the effects of an aging population into account, the numbers show a substantial improvement in the employment picture since the summer of 2011.<\/p>\n

None of this should be taken to imply that the situation is good, or to deny that we should be doing better \u2014 a shortfall largely due to the scorched-earth tactics of Republicans, who have blocked any and all efforts to accelerate the pace of recovery. (If the American Jobs Act, proposed by the Obama administration last year, had been passed, the unemployment rate would probably be below 7 percent.) The U.S. economy is still far short of where it should be, and the job market has a long way to go before it makes up the ground lost in the Great Recession. But the employment data do suggest an economy that is slowly healing, an economy in which declining consumer debt burdens and a housing revival have finally put us on the road back to full employment.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the truth that the right can\u2019t handle. The furor over Friday\u2019s report revealed a political movement that is rooting for American failure, so obsessed with taking down Mr. Obama that good news for the nation\u2019s long-suffering workers drives its members into a blind rage. It also revealed a movement that lives in an intellectual bubble, dealing with uncomfortable reality \u2014 whether that reality involves polls or economic data \u2014 not just by denying the facts, but by spinning wild conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n

It is, quite simply, frightening to think that a movement this deranged wields so much political power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: Truth About Jobs by Paul Krugman in The New York Times. The Text: If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Friday\u2019s better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Truth About Jobs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When things go poorly on their own accord, the GOP blames Obama. And when they go right in spite of their efforts, well, it's a conspiracy!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Truth About Jobs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When things go poorly on their own accord, the GOP blames Obama. And when they go right in spite of their efforts, well, it's a conspiracy!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prose Before Hos\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-30T15:00:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-12-26T21:03:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Article of the Day\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@pbhnetwork\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@pbhnetwork\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Article of the Day\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/\",\"name\":\"The Truth About Jobs\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-11-30T15:00:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-12-26T21:03:16+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1e19d7cf2b1a9aea1805fd7b4b4b2b4e\"},\"description\":\"When things go poorly on their own accord, the GOP blames Obama. And when they go right in spite of their efforts, well, it's a conspiracy!\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Truth About Jobs\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/\",\"name\":\"Prose Before Hos\",\"description\":\"The Far Side Of Politics\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1e19d7cf2b1a9aea1805fd7b4b4b2b4e\",\"name\":\"Article of the Day\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pbhnetwork\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/author\/article-of-the-day\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Truth About Jobs","description":"When things go poorly on their own accord, the GOP blames Obama. And when they go right in spite of their efforts, well, it's a conspiracy!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Truth About Jobs","og_description":"When things go poorly on their own accord, the GOP blames Obama. And when they go right in spite of their efforts, well, it's a conspiracy!","og_url":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/","og_site_name":"Prose Before Hos","article_published_time":"2012-11-30T15:00:45+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-12-26T21:03:16+00:00","author":"Article of the Day","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@pbhnetwork","twitter_site":"@pbhnetwork","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Article of the Day","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/","url":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/","name":"The Truth About Jobs","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-11-30T15:00:45+00:00","dateModified":"2012-12-26T21:03:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1e19d7cf2b1a9aea1805fd7b4b4b2b4e"},"description":"When things go poorly on their own accord, the GOP blames Obama. And when they go right in spite of their efforts, well, it's a conspiracy!","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/11\/30\/the-truth-about-jobs\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Truth About Jobs"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/","name":"Prose Before Hos","description":"The Far Side Of Politics","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1e19d7cf2b1a9aea1805fd7b4b4b2b4e","name":"Article of the Day","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/pbhnetwork"],"url":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/author\/article-of-the-day\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132401"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133389,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132401\/revisions\/133389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}