It’s The Economy, Stupid! (Running Out Of Time Edition)
Any Republican candidate who doesn’t tout these figures in his last few days of campaigning is a hopeless fool who doesn’t deserve reelection:
The unemployment rate dropped to a five-year low of 4.4 percent in October as employers added 92,000 new jobs — flashing a picture of a strong labor market as the midterm elections draw near.
The latest report, released Friday by the Labor Department, showed that the civilian unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage point from 4.6 percent in September. It marked the third month in a row that the politically prominent jobless rate declined.
The tally of new jobs added to the economy in October fell short of economists expectations for an increase of around 125,000 positions, however. Nonetheless, job gains in both August and September turned out to be much stronger than previously estimated — and that took a lot of the sting out of October’s less-than-expected payroll performance.
Economists were expecting the unemployment rate to hold steady in October or possibly edge up a notch.
Friday’s report provided the last snapshot of the nation’s employment scene before next week’s elections.
Workers’ average hourly earnings climbed to $16.91 in October, a sizable 0.4 percent increase from September. That increase was bigger than the 0.3 percent rise economists were expecting. Over the last 12 months, wages grew by 3.9 percent.
3.9% wage growth in the last year? 4.4% unemployment? Run with it, boys and girls, you don’t have many days left…
Just curious as to your thoughts on this (it’s not on topic, per se). I was checking the real clear politics polling info and noticed something interesting. I saw those 20%+ spread figures awhile back and then the 0%-3% spread figures and wondered what could have accounted for that. Well, I noticed the “undecided” tally for the 20% spreads are low while they are quite high for close spreads. Basically, for the last 29 polls the average spread for undecided of 5% or less is just shy of 17% spread, while the average for undecided of 6% or more is just under 14%. Just something I noticed and though “gee, that’s not great news for Republicans”. Of course, many polling people were banking on a 2-1 undecided swing for Kerry and none of them were right, so we’ll see I guess. I’m still in the “close but not quite” camp.
Oh, sorry for not including the link the first time around.
Well, if you’re asking which way the undecideds will break, it’s very, very hard to figure out these days, because the news cycles happen so quickly (who cares about Mark Foley anymore?). That’s why some people (i.e., Greenwald) are upset about the scheduled Saddam verdict – it will be so close to the election.
I suspect, though, all things being equal, that the Democrats WILL get most of the undecideds this time around…and yes, that’s not great news for Republicans…but that’s just a gut feeling, like most of my predictions…
Agree with the topic and theme of this post. Why is it so obvious to you and me but not to them? Do they know something we don’t? Do voters not care about good economic news? Is broad positive economic news irrelevant to most voters because they already know, and only care, about their own situation? Or is it just that those running for office see only two silver bullets: security & their record?
In any case, strange that it isn’t front and center.
Also, the presence of inflation doesn’t really put the “wages have increase 3.9%” in too good of a light…it’s darn near 4.00% as it turns out (probably between 3.5% and 3.75% with the Katrina blips mentioned on the graph). But, yes, unemployment low is a fairly good thing I suppose. But, just talking about one indicator would not be very convincing…
Inflation has been too high, no argument here…however, the traditional remedy for inflation is to raise the Fed Funds rate, and with housing in a slump…
“Do voters not care about good economic news?”
Sure they do, TMS – but after gettng bombarded with “BushLied/IraqVietnam/Foley/GOPhatesgays” 24/7, any good economic news has been basically non – reported on in most cases. Even when the numbers look good, almost every MSM outlet gives us the standard “yes, but…” Most GOP candidates probably figured that even if they talked about the economy, the voters were already numbed due to the vitriolic coverage of the above issues.