From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:
Here were are again with a fresh batch of tasty job numbers. Well, maybe not so tasty as sour. Well, maybe not so sour as bland. Well… let’s face it everyone has an opinion on this new round of job numbers is supposed to mean. Unemployment rates are down but so are new hires. Wouldn’t that mean unemployment goes up? I need the Muppets to explain this. Which side of the analysis do you come down on?
WHAT THE LATEST UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS MEAN from Newsweek
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced another set of harrowing job numbers Friday. The private sector added 83,000 new jobs, but the number of total jobs added was negative, as temporary census workers saw their positions come to an end. The unemployment rate dipped from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent, although that’s a sign of would-be workers leaving the hunt, not recovery. What do the numbers mean? Five experts weigh in.
Resigned
Looking through the numbers, it seems more likely than ever that the U.S. is entering a lost decade much like what plagued Japan in the 1990s, libertarian think-tanker Samuel Staley argues in the right-wing National Review. What’s more, it doesn’t look as if there’s much we can do.
“Complicating matters, the so-called stimulus program is showing itself for the paper tiger it is. Despite filling pot holes, shifting home purchases up several months, and spending on marginally beneficial programs, construction unemployment hovers around 20 percent.”
Exhorting
Staley’s dangerously mistaken, counters Steve Benen, a liberal blogger and consistent stimulus cheerleader. In fact, Benen argues, these numbers show that the problem is deeper than we thought, and therefore we need a stimulus larger than we thought.
“Nevertheless, one can only hope that this report makes it abundantly clear to policymakers in Washington that more investment in job creation is necessary. Cutting spending and focusing on deficit reduction, as Republicans demand, may prove disastrous.”
Depressed
It’s not time to panic, assures David Leonhardt, a New York Times business columnist—all is not lost, although things are moving too slowly. He too agrees that more stimulus is needed.
“The overall picture isn’t so much of a double-dip recession as it is of a badly wounded economy recovering at a slow pace. But that’s not much to get excited about … If the Senate and the Federal Reserve were waiting for more information to decide whether the economy needed more help, they just got it.”
For more punditry go here.
