All hail the jobless recovery!

Um…August 2004 was three years after the trough of the recession (Q301) and the figure for job growth in those three years was indeed significantly lower than job growth after we emerged from the 1991 recession. This recession is not even over yet, as far as we know, and neither the Post nor anyone has anything to say about the strength of the recovery or lack thereof.

Saying that something would be “strong evidence” of an improvement in the economy (id it happened) is hardly the same as saying that there is a strong recovery. They also, by the way, ad the caveat “But there are reasons to doubt that will happen.”

You’re purposely misreading the Post, or not reading closely enough. Or just enjoy getting your knickers in a twist over nothing.

Bleeds Blue on August 31, 2009 at 1:53 PM

Bleeds Blue on August 31, 2009 at 1:53 PM

Job growth will tend to be higher when you have higher unemployment and the economy bounces back… just like you stop having job growth when the rate dips much below 5%.

What’s interesting is that people are already saying the recession is over… yet unemployment is expected to stay pegged in the high 9’s for another 16 months despite the economy growing.

That’s what jobless growth looks like.

Chuck Schick on August 31, 2009 at 1:57 PM

I don’t disagree. Job growth was also high during the Clinton era because there was a fundamental change of attitude/economic factors. You may recall a lot of hand-wringing when employment began to drop below 6% — there was fear that anything lower would bring inflation and there was talk that The Fed should put the breaks on. They didn’t, “full employment” was revised to a higher figure and Clinton’s numbers ended up looking particularly good.

Bleeds Blue on August 31, 2009 at 1:53 PM

You tried hard to miss the point, didn’t you?

lorien1973 on August 31, 2009 at 2:00 PM

The point was wrong. If your compare apples to oranges you don’t come away with any useful analysis.

Um…August 2004 was three years after the trough of the recession (Q301)

Bleeds Blue on August 31, 2009 at 1:53 PM

A

re you high? Q301, hmmm what happened then? Oh I know, a little something called 9/11 which practically shut down air travel and the entire tourism industry for 4-6 months afterwards, not to mention the fact that people were scared to leave their house, let alone create any sort of economic activity for a few months as well. But yeah, that was the trough of the recession.

I recall that day. But, the point that I was making didn’t turn on that event. I was merely stating that when the Post was writing about jobless recoveries in 2004, three years had passed since the trough of the recession, making it possible to render a judgment on the extent of the recovery, whereas now we don’t know if we’ve bottomed out or not, so no can or is making that same type of judgment.

Bleeds Blue on August 31, 2009 at 2:14 PM

I’m sorry, this doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement:

“The big news of the week should be Friday’s employment report, which many analysts suspect will show that the labor market, while still quite bad, continues on a path toward stabilization.”

There may be bias, but this article is not proof of anything.

Of course, maybe the reason the msm rports good news more often during Democratic administrations is because there is more good economic news then, as Michael Kinsley pointed out last fall.

Bleeds Blue on August 31, 2009 at 2:24 PM