Job Growth Loses Steam (Unexpectedly Bad!)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 04/06/12 | Josh Mitchell etal

[TonyInOhio]

WASHINGTON—U.S. job growth slowed in March, and the labor force shrank, signaling that the economy could be losing momentum.

Jobs outside of agriculture grew by 120,000 last month—half the number that the economy added the prior month—the Labor Department said Friday, marking the first time since November that job growth fell below 200,000.

The unemployment rate, obtained by a separate survey of U.S. households, ticked down a tenth of a percentage point to 8.2%, but the drop resulted in part from fewer Americans seeking work.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected a gain of 203,000 in payrolls and for the jobless rate to remain at 8.3% for March.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”So the media will use one set of “adjusted” numbers to claim that unemployment is going down, but the Fed will use another set as an excuse for more “stimulus?”
Not just “Heads we lose, tails we lose,” but rather both?”

This is what I would expect from rising gas prices.

On Cavuto today they discussed this. They said Obama has another problem : returning troops coming home looking for jobs filling the official unemployed number ranks replacing all those that gave up looking, making the unemployment numbers go higher.

If Obama got a huge stimulus then the debt limit might need to be extended again before the election.

[DaxtonBrown]

I was seeing numbers double this. Bwahahaha. I knew the green shoots seemed a little rotten.

[RayChuang88]

Let's face it folks.

For REAL economic recovery to happen, we need the following:

1. Government needs to be aggressively audited for bureaucratic overlap, agency bloat and obsolete/unneeded regulations and use the audit results to substantially cut the size of government--possibly as high as 30% initially. Such a cut could cut the US Federal budget by US$700 billion or more per year, freeing up money for more private economic activity.

2. The income tax system needs to be aggressively overhauled and eventually phased out. I'd implement the no-loophole 17% flat-rate income tax proposed by Steve Forbes back in 1996 starting the 2013 tax year, and begin the transition process so starting the 2015 tax year the income tax is phased out (along with repealing the 16th Amendmnent) in favor something like FairTax (H.R. 25/S. 13), which would effectively end all taxation on the process of earning money. These changes could mean we could cut yearly tax compliance costs down to five percent of what we spend now, which mean instead of spending (by some estimates) around US$430 BILLION per year in tax compliance, we could free up as much as US$408.5 BILLION per year for more productive activities!

[ChildOfThe60s]

And yet...the unemployment number goes down, which is the only news the MSM will report.

The irony is that even if they explained it, the ignorant TV watchers would be able to process the information.

[ChildOfThe60s]

And yet...the unemployment number goes down, which is the only news the MSM will report.

The irony is that even if they explained it, the ignorant TV watchers would not be able to process the information.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Good points....Cavuto is a sharp guy too.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

On Cavuto today they discussed this. They said Obama has another problem : returning troops coming home looking for jobs filling the official unemployed number ranks replacing all those that gave up looking, making the unemployment numbers go higher.

Well, he could start another war. Otherwise, govt. numbers umenployment will require more "adjustments." Maybe both.

If Obama got a huge stimulus then the debt limit might need to be extended again before the election.

It would have to be a hell of a Stimulus to pay for jobs for the returning military. The first Stimulus was a promise to keep unemployment low, but I don't think Obama can push a big one through the House this time unless he gains lots of seats in Nov.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”The first Stimulus was a promise to keep unemployment low, but I don't think Obama can push a big one through the House this time unless he gains lots of seats in Nov.”

Ha-HA, you completely miss the point. Obama doesn't right now give a crap what happens AFTER November wrt to jobs.
A stimulus does him no good then, he needs it before the election.

And Bernanke can't QE3 with rising prices.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Ha-HA, you completely miss the point. Obama doesn't right now give a crap what happens AFTER November wrt to jobs. A stimulus does him no good then, he needs it before the election.

I partly agree, in that Nov. is his "last election," as he told the Russians. But he (like many other DC characters) does seem to have a lot of fun spending money. And if he could get a stimulus passed after 2012, he could happily, wastefully spend without having to worry about voter backlash, at least a backlash against himself. If he really believes that another stimulus would work, he might think it would put Pelosi back in charge. So far, since 2010, the House has said hell no to stimuli.

[momincombatboots]

You mean ones with 99 weeks of getting paid to stay home? You have more faith in them than I do. I know a few who have taken other jobs, but they are the very slim majority.

[stephenjohnbanker]

No stimulus.

[Drew68]

The Soviet Union used to report 100% employment. If you include the labor camps, I guess that was true.

There were a lot of "make work" type jobs, many of which still exist in the FSU today. Go to a public restroom in Ukraine for example and you'll see one lady whose job it is to collect admission to the restroom and another lady whose job it is to distribute about 8" of toilet paper to each paying customer. A third lady cleans the restroom and a fourth lady supervises the three employees.

I saw this at the enormous train station in Kiev. Soviet "full employment" was no lie.

[hinckley buzzard]

The Soviet Union used to report 100% employment

And China has growth of ten percent per year for decades compounded. This is the "Ministry of Truth" at work. It sank the USSR, it will sink China, and it is now for the first time, in full noxious bloom in the USA.

No one has ever failed to take government announcements with a grain of salt. But this is the first administration that has simply made up false numbers out of whole cloth and peddled them as truth through the ministrations of colluding media, worthy of the USSR's wonderful reports on their five year plans.