Jobs report creates speed bump for Obama, Democratic convention
Lewis DiuguidTiming is everything, but today’s jobs report didn’t help President Barack Obama’s re-election bid or provide the bump in the polls he had hoped to get from Thursday’s end of the Democratic National Convention.
The Labor Department report showed that the economy added fewer jobs than expected. The unemployment rate for August only ticked down to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July. Keep in mind that no incumbent president has ever won re-election when the unemployment rate was above 7.2 percent.
The seasonally adjusted jobs only increased by 96,000 when 125,000 were expected. In his nomination acceptance speech Thursday night at the convention in Charlotte, N.C., Obama said people would have to be patient because he had positioned the country on the long road toward economic improvement.
But people in this country have suffered the expense and more than a decade of two miserable wars and five years of recession and economic malaise with no end in sight. They have seen the equity in their homes plummet, jobs disappear, pay frozen and hours cut for those still working, savings assaulted and debt spike.
Economically, people are battle weary and needed change yesterday in our instant everything 21st century society. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is counting on people being unwilling to wait for Obama’s turnaround.
Obama, meanwhile, will have to have a David Copperfield moment to convince voters that his plan for the economy for the next four years will pull the job numbers up sufficiently and the unemployment rate down so that families can breathe a little easier.
Hope in the weeks leading up to November just isn’t enough.
Kent Mueller
8 months, 2 weeks agoLewis, you have repeatedly said that no one has won re-election with an unemployment rate over 7.2%.
FDR won re-election in 1936 with unemployment being 16.9. He also was re-elected in 1940 when unemployment was 14.6. Also, Reagan was re-elected in 1984 with 7.5% unemployment.
What those enduring unemployment rates in the 30’s say about Keynesian economics is a topic for another time.