This seemed newsworthy, so here's what I found out about it. Some might call it good news for President Obama's campaign.
Good news, bad news on jobs numbers
by Mickey Hepner, edmondsun.com -- Sep 28, 2012
EDMOND -- Maybe the economy is a little better than we thought. This week the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released information that showed private-sector employment in the U.S. was likely 453,000 jobs higher in March than previously had been reported by the agency. In short, the economy is nearly one-half million private-sector jobs better than previously thought.
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Each year, in an effort to ensure that the monthly employment estimates are close to reality, the BLS uses more detailed data -- state unemployment insurance tax records -- to adjust its estimates. While these adjustments are made each year with the January employment report, this last week the BLS released a preliminary estimate of what that adjustment will be next January (based on detailed state data from March). Based on the data it appears the BLS previously underestimated private-sector employment by 453,000 jobs.
While the announcement was made with little fanfare (in fact few people other than economists knew of it at all), it is significant. The BLS previously had estimated that the U.S. economy had added 4.6 million private-sector jobs since February 2010 when the economy bottomed out from the Great Recession. Instead, if the adjustment holds, the total rises to nearly 5.1 million jobs. Furthermore, in 2011 the economy would have posted the largest one-year gain in private-sector employment since the Internet boom days of 1999.
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Wow.
Largest one-year gain since 1999 -- that seems significant.
There are some direct political implications of the revised New Jobs numbers, and Greg Sargent draws out here:
New jobs numbers under cut major Romney talking point
by Greg Sargent, washingtonpost.com -- Sep 27, 2012
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This new finding, however, does matter politically in a few key ways. First, as Justin Wolfers points out, the added jobs means that there has no longer been a “net” loss of jobs on Obama’s watch. As you know, Romney has been saying for a very long time now that the “net” jobs lost on Obama’s watch proves his policies failed. That’s a bogus metric, because it factors in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in each of the first few months of Obama’s term, before those policies went into effect.
But putting that aside, net jobs were now actually gained on Obama’s watch. So, in theory at least, Romney has been deprived of one of the talking points that has been central to his candidacy for a year now. That talking point was crucial for Romney, because it enabled him to make the (nonsensical) case that Obama destroyed jobs overall.
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The new BLS revision actually finds 453,000 total additional private sector jobs were created. It is revising the total upwards by only 386,000 because it also discovered that an additional 67,000 public sector jobs were lost -- another indication that government cuts may have been a bit more of a drag on the recovery than previously thought.
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Now for my non-obligatory rant. Being an undervalued, overworked, Government worker myself, barely hanging on by my fingertips -- those "revised-downward" stats speak to me, and my frayed-thin pysche (having "survived" too much downsizing already) ...
It seems to me, that most Government Jobs are "middle class jobs" too.
And if an economy grows from the "middle class outwards -- instead of from the top down," as President Obama frequently asserts, then simply cutting Government Jobs -- or even "entire government programs" as Mitt Romney has promised to do
-- probably won't help the Economy "grow" like Republicans think. Laid-off teachers, fire-fighters, and "government regulators" -- are still unemployed workers NOT adding to consumer demand, as they would otherwise would if they were still gainfully employed.
Plans that propose to put people back to work -- should not include on the other-hand austerity measures, that casts out countless others to find their way in the Employment lines. That's not a plan for growth -- it's simply a further erosion of our once strong Social Fabric. All to keep the greedy in gold bullion.
But of course, that IS the point of Republican Rhetoric -- they hope to shrink Government to the point, where a safety-net society, is simply a distant memory of a prior once-hopeful age. In other words, the "Height of Foolishness" from the Republican's Got-mine, You're-on-your-own worldviews.
They don't need no Government Employees -- according to them Government IS the problem -- NOT their own conta-constitutional pledges, never to raise another dime in Tax Revenues again -- no matter who else or what else gets "shredded" in the process. As long as they got their piles of loot stacked to the skies, then all is right in their Me-only worlds.
Government Workers will just need to go get "a real job" or something, like cutting Mitt Romney's many lawns, or parking his cars, or filing his Taxes. And stop all the whining -- ask your parents for a loan, already. Jeesh!
End of my civics-based rant. Thank you for reading.
Please vote -- like Society depended on it ... because it kind of does.