Author Topic: Will Obama finally get some credit for the improving economy?  (Read 1209 times)

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Offline mystery-ak

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/03/will-obama-finally-get-some-credit-for-the-improving-economy/

 By Paul Waldman July 3 at 12:07 PM

Today’s jobs report was a very good one: 288,000 new jobs were created in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent, the lowest it has been since September 2008, just before the crash. Furthermore, we’ve now had five consecutive months with more than 200,000 jobs added, which hasn’t happened since 1999-2000. So will Barack Obama get the credit?

Probably not. First of all, we shouldn’t get too excited; there are still a lot of people looking for work, there are a lot who have gotten discouraged and dropped out of the labor force, and there are a lot working part time when they’d rather have full-time jobs. But even if everyone is in agreement that things are looking up, the president can expect to get partial credit, at best.

Obama’s economic ratings have never been very high, at least since the initial honeymoon of his election wore off. In fact, they’ve hovered around 40 percent for most of his presidency, as this chart aggregating results from a variety of surveys (courtesy of Huffpost Pollster) shows:interactive graph at link

The most important reason for this is, of course, the simple reality that the economy hasn’t been that great in the past six years; even when there have been a couple of good months in a row, the hole the country has been trying to climb out of was so deep that no one could honestly say things were going splendidly. But there’s a partisan element too, in that ratings of the president have become much more clearly predictable by party in the last decade or so. If you look at the polarization of Gallup approval ratings — the difference between how Democrats rate the president and how Republicans rate him — you see that 10 of the 12 most polarized years ever came in the presidencies of Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

That means that no matter how good the economy gets, only a tiny number of Republicans will ever say that Obama is doing a good job on the economy. Just as Democrats tend to do under a Republican president, if things go badly they’ll say it was his fault, but if things go well they’ll say he had nothing to do with it. That will put a ceiling on how high his economic ratings can rise.

Even with five months of good job growth, Americans aren’t yet convinced that the economy is humming. But what if four months from now — just before the midterm election — we’ve had nine months of solid growth? If that were to happen, it would almost certainly show up in President Obama’s approval ratings, as the good news disseminates through the media and people see the effects in their own lives and communities. But it might not make much of a difference in the midterm elections, which are far less affected by the economy than presidential elections.

In other words, President Obama and Democrats can take heart in the economic news — but not too much.

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Offline massadvj

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Re: Will Obama finally get some credit for the improving economy?
« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2014, 09:34:34 pm »
I can't explain it better than Rush did today, so here is Rush's take:

"So we are creating jobs left and right.  Man, oh, man.  We are just percolating.  We are smokin'!  We're steaming right along.  So the unemployment rate fell from 6.3 to 6.1%.  Well, you want the internals?

"The number of people aged 16 years and above who are not in the labor force increased by 111,000 this past month. While a somewhat lower increase than in months past, it still outpaces forecasted retirements."  The number of people 16 and above who are not in the labor force.  So another 111,000 people just left the labor force.  That's the labor force participation rate.

Remember the total job number now, 288,000, that's the big number they reported.  Got that in your head, 288,000?  Yippee, new jobs.  "The number of people taking part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work increased by 275,000 this past month." Yeah, of course there's a lot of careers being built on that.  Two hundred and eighty-eight thousand new jobs, 275,000 are part time.  Ahem.

"In fact, the number of people employed full-time ... declined by 523,000 while the number of part-time workers increased by 799,000 (which includes those who wanted part-time and those who wanted full-time but could only find part-time)." Got that?  June full-time jobs plunged by over half a million.  Part-time jobs surged by 800,000.  That's the most since 1993.  Now, somewhere out there is this number of 288,000 new jobs that the Drive-Bys and their faux economist reporters are doing cartwheels over.  So 111,000 more people leave the labor force, 275,000 new part-time jobs this month.  The number of people employed full time declined by over half a million.  The number of part-time workers increased by nearly 800,000. ..."

"Here, in a nutshell, is what you need to know about the jobs report number today.  This is what you need to know: 500,000 full-time jobs were lost in June while 799,000 low-paying part-time jobs were created.  That's the most since 1993. Those 800,000 low-paying part-time jobs, that's what you need to know. That's how you get close to the 288,000 number: 500,000 full-time jobs lost.

You're gonna see all day and all weekend as the Drive-Bys pump this up, "Wow, 288,000 new jobs! Five straight months of 200,000-plus jobs created! The unemployment rate is down to 6.1%! Wow!  Isn't Obama great?"  Blah, blah. Blah, blah. Blah, blah.  The number (and it's in the same report that that 288,000 number is in) is half a million full-time jobs lost in June, and 799,000 part-time jobs created.

Remember how we were told it was a lie that Obamacare would cause employers to drive people to part-time jobs?  Remember how we were all told that?  There were a number of us who pointed out that this is gonna cause employers to shift people from full time to part time so that they do not have to cover them.  The costs are gonna be so high that employers are gonna shift jobs.

They're gonna cut hours down to below 30 a week, making 'em part time so that they are exempt from the mandate that they be provided health insurance.  We were told that that was a lie, that Obamacare would cause that to happen.  We were told that there was no evidence of that happening!  Well, now we have the evidence.  We have the evidence.

We were told that that wasn't gonna happen.

"No, no, no, no, no.  Obamacare is gonna be so attractive to employers, it's gonna be so attractive it's not gonna cause that to happen," and it's been happening long before this. It just keeps growing.  More and more people are being converted to part time and losing their health care in the process, and they told us we were crazy for saying that.  They told us that we were nuts for thinking that." 

« Last Edit: July 03, 2014, 09:35:00 pm by massadvj »

Oceander

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Re: Will Obama finally get some credit for the improving economy?
« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2014, 02:32:48 am »
he doesn't deserve it so why should he get it?