At a rally in Ashburn, Virginia this week, Trump said, “The [economic] numbers are getting worse and worse all the time. If they get real bad, I hope it happens fast, so I don’t have to — they’ll all blame me. You’ll end up winning and your first day, the economy crashes because of some incompetent people before me.”
That’s admittedly a bit of Palinesque word salad, but reading between the gobbledygook I think I can discern him saying that he thinks the economy is going to tank and that he hope it happens before the election so that he can benefit politically from it and also so he doesn’t get blamed for it when the downturn happens under his watch.
What’s clearer is his assertion that “the numbers are getting worse and worse,” which would be helpful to him if it were true. But, it’s not:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 255,000 in July. Revisions showed U.S. employers added 18,000 more jobs in May and June than previously estimated. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.9% in July. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected employers would add 179,000 jobs in July alongside an unemployment rate of 4.8%.
I think Dubya Bush once said that he wanted to be the jobs president, but he wasn’t. That moniker will be forever enjoyed by the current occupant of the White House:
Love is pouring in from all sides for U.S. President Obama as he turns 55, celebrating his last birthday as the President… In what seems to be a surprise gift for Obama from America, his approval rates shot as high as 54 percent on his birthday. Both CNN and ORC International confirmed that the President has secured the highest approval rating ever in his second term.
Under President Obama, the American economy has now experienced 77 months of consecutive private sector job growth, but Trump calls this “a disaster.” Obama has not generally received enough credit for this, especially considering that the Republican Congress rejected every job-boosting idea that the administration offered over the last five and a half years. That didn’t prevent robust job growth, but it did prevent any effort to reduce income inequality and it allowed our infrastructure needs/risks to grow. With a friendly Congress, I am certain that unemployment would have been considerably lower because people would have been building and repairing stuff all over this country. In any case, it’s good to know that Trump is rooting for an economic downturn to happen in the next 90 days so he can personally benefit. He has a habit of benefiting when others suffer. And, of course, Moody’s analysts say that Trump’s proposals would “would result in a two-year-long recession and a sharp increase in unemployment, among other ills.”
But what do they know? Those Bureau of Labor Statistics are a scam anyway, right?
It’s true that Obama hasn’t been able to do anything proactive with the economy since 2010. But his mere presence prevented the economy-killing measures that the GOP would like to enact, as they did in Kansas.
Of course, the economic growth has mainly helped the people at the top, as it did under Bush 43 as well as under Reagan. Clinton’s boom actually helped everyone due to the tax revisions made in his first year, however, Obama wasn’t able to do nearly as much because he inherited Bush 43’s disaster.
One meme on the right is how much the national debt has grown under Obama – even worse than Bush they’ll point out. What they don’t mention is that Bush inherited a healthy economy and a surplus. Bush left behind the worst crash since the great depression and a skyrocketing deficit. But don’t worry, wingnuts solve that by blaming the crash on Obummer and his blahs in the hood.
You bet! Obama done it. I regularly see the story about our debt on my FB. You would think someone is at the door to foreclose and throw us all out in the street. And, believe me, there is no way in heaven to dissuade them. Obama has stolen the people’s money!
Trump’s plan for the US economy would certainly have to involve how many times he can file bankruptcy in it. After all just look at his massive business successes. Trump has stuck numerous contractors with not getting paid. I bet he drools at the though of filing bankruptcy on the numerous debts the US has with other countries.
Martin,
“Those Bureau of Labor Statistics are a scam anyway, right? ” Haven’t you learned by now that sarcasm is dead?
Lawyers
Census
participation
Gallup
Paul Craig
Employer Underreporting
Even Grandmothers!!
I didn’t reference the REALLY out to lunch sites.
Trying to inoculate himself? Maybe everyone he knows is doing better??
Back in 2014, even…
The U.S. Economy: Kidding Ourselves
http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/169133/economy-kidding-ourselves.aspx?g_source=position5&
g_medium=related&g_campaign=tiles
But to be fair, the GOOD jobs rate has been upwards…that is jobs that are full time and are not GIG jobs.
U.S. Gallup Good Jobs Rate Climbs to New High Again in July
http://www.gallup.com/poll/194153/gallup-good-jobs-rate-climbs-new-high-again-july.aspx?g_source=Eco
nomy&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles
I’m baffled by what you mean by “trying to innoculate himself?”. Please explain.
Also, call me naive, but when I look at reports coming out of polling outfits, I expect to see measured language. (Reports from the Pew organization are examples.) I do not expect to see sarcasm like this, from the first link you provided:
“Americans aren’t looking for part-time, crappy jobs, and they aren’t looking for more free time to paint or read.”
Is that sort of verbiage supposed to increase my confidence in the poll?
If sarcasm is dead, is exasperation permissible? Did you read the title of the piece? About kidding ourselves?
Gallop publishes quite a bit of pretty fair economic reporting, but I guess most prefer to get theirs from the MSM.
I read the entire piece, in fact.
I guess we have different expectations from opinion polls. If the charts are accompanied by sarcastic commentary, my confidence is not bolstered. We seem to have a fundamental disagreement on this point.
Holy cow…I just had a look at the last linked website, called Right Wing Granny. It’s written in a pretty straightforward way, no frothing at the mouth, but her main sources seem to be, for example, Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart.
What are the sources of her NUMBERS and CHARTS?
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I think employment rate is more important than unemployment rate, as the latter tends not to include people who have given up.
And employment is up, but still far from pre-crisis days.
I think this is 100% wrong, since the former includes people who can afford to leave or not participate in the workforce willingly. There’s no reason to prefer any particular employment rate, but we should want the unemployment rate as low as it can reasonably go.
Adding:
For example, an economy with more students will have a lower employment rate, and this is a good thing. An economy with more early retirees will have a lower employment rate, and this is a good thing. Etc.
Then why does almost EVERY developed country have a greater worker participation rate than we do? Some of their demographics are worse than ours. We have easier disability qualifications??? LOL
http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/15/news/economy/europe-america-workforce/
Maybe women are leaving the workforce because wages will not pay for childcare? But % of prime age men is down, too.
Mostly fewer stay at home moms and better childcare and health care policies. Also fewer people unemployable due to racism and minority criminalization.
Unemployment and wage growth are how you measure the strength of the labor market. Employment numbers are tangential to the strength of the labor market.
Oh yeah, also mass incarceration.
Prisoners not counted as BEING in the labor force.
NOT IN THE LABOR FORCE:
Anyone who is not classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as members of the labor force, either employed persons or unemployed persons. This catch-all category is largely comprised of several notable segments of the population, such as young, elderly, homemakers, and military. However, it includes others who are either unwilling or unable to engage in productive activities for assorted reasons. The “not in the labor force” numbers are computed monthly by the BLS along with other employment and labor force information using data generated by the Current Population Survey.
http://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.pl?s=wpd&c=dsp&k=not+in+the+labor+force
Is that to say that they are not part of the denominator that determines % labor force employed?
That makes all the this and that caveats pointless.
In theory, yes a low employment rate can be because more are taking early retirement or otherwise enjoying life with work. But in my experience employment rates are still more trustworthy then unemployment rates.
In this case, we can look at employment and unemployment side by side (courtesy of Wikipedia, I did not manage the FRED site well enough to do this on my phone):
I think the decline in unemployment while employment stayed flat was most likely due to people no longer registering as unemployed because they have given up.
I wonder how much can be explained by people who were previously job-locked due to a need for employer-sponsored health insurance but can now get insurance via Obamacare.
I’d be interested in how many have moved to SS disability as well.
The wage growth numbers we’re seeing imply to me that there can’t be too much slack left to take up.
This is complicated – a better picture is 24-55 – there is strong evidence that kids are in school longer and that has reduced the rate.
So Booman is talking out of two sides of his mouth:
The truth is the structural problems have left those in the bottom 80% losing ground for 20 years. They pre-dated Obama, and they mostly continued under him. He helped avert another depression, but even if he had a Democratic Congress I doubt he would have made much or any progress on inequality.
I have said many times here that the forces driving inequality are far larger than Clinton will address. This is not the same thing as saying the economy will crash, though.
Honestly I think one of the major underappreciated drivers of inequality is the fact that the FED steps in every time the labor market gets the tiniest bit tight to cut wage growth off at the knees. Always content to undershoot their inflation target but entirely unwilling to overshoot it, the result is an economy where productivity gains never reach the workers. If the federal reserve was willing to tolerate 4% inflation, or at least willing to overshoot their 2% target as often as they’re willing to undershoot it we’d see at least some amelioration of the capital/labor inequality.
In fact, the Fed DID allow higher inflation under Greenspan in the 90s. Which certainly contributed to wage growth along with tech bubble.
Right you are, here is 24-55:
Same pattern, though different numbers.
So about 40% back. There is evidence from Pew some of this is families choosing to have a parent stay at home.
The economy isn’t really OK. We aren’t back to anything like a really healthy economy.
Of course the irony is if you understand the LFPR then the economy is probably pretty good for you.
So far, the decrease in unemployment has caused reduction in real wages. That IS a problem.
Lower skills workers finding jobs might cause that…
http://www.epi.org/publication/federal-reserve-fact-sheet/
Trump of course wishes fervently for economic collapse or terrorist attacks to occur between now and the election. No surprise there. But isn’t there something perverse more systemically in the way our economy operates? Think about the way that Wall Street and the Masters of the Universe typically regard low unemployment as bad news. They like a robust reserve army of the unemployed.
If the Frog Pond readers are not already familiar, might I suggest a blog called Calculated Risk? Just as a bit of a teaser, here is his commentary on the jobs report. His blog is a go-to for me and has been for many years. I know – my ideology, blah blah. I have to remain clear-eyed about the economy I live in, rather than the one I wish for. Really – McBride is excellent at what he does, he refuses to pull punches, and he avoids false optimism or pessimism. Works for me.
Read him everyday.
Does anyone know where the majority of job losses have been? Good paying jobs with bennies? Significant employers of POC. Under austerity, they have not returned. Public Sector jobs
“In fact, public-sector employment (i.e. federal, state, and local government jobs) declined in 10 of the past 12 months, in sharp contrast to 29 consecutive months of private-sector job growth. Indeed, falling public employment has been among the largest contributors to unemployment in the United States since the end of the Great Recession.”
https:/www.brookings.edu/2012/08/03/a-record-decline-in-government-jobs-implications-for-the-econom
y-and-americas-workforce (2012)
Blacks hit hardest by public-sector job losses during recession, study finds (Aug 2015)
http://www.washington.edu/news/2015/08/24/blacks-hit-hardest-by-public-sector-job-losses-during-rece
ssion-study-finds/
Job shifts under Obama: Fewer government workers, more caregivers, servers and temps (Jan 2015)
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/14/job-shifts-under-obama-fewer-government-workers-more
-caregivers-servers-and-temps/ (There you go, Joe..Pew.)
That’s been one of the awful effects of both the great recession and the choices made by Congress during the current decade. Public sector jobs at the federal, state, and local levels fell for a number of years and appear to have bottomed out. So the “good” news is that the bleeding appears to have stopped. The bad news is that public sector jobs are not being added to the degree needed. Prospects are likely to remain bleak on that front for the time being, and for those concerned about such things, the lack of public sector jobs will remain a drag on the economy.
We could stop privatizing public services. How many of those good paying/good bennie jobs disappeared when outsourcing became our standard. Giving tax money to elites who hire minimal wage (with NO bennies) replacements to do the govt’s duty while bosses pocket the difference. Sweet gigs.
I am all in favor of ending the privatization of public services. Hurts the employees, hurts those who rely on said services (to the extent that for profit companies offer either cut-rate service and/or charge for services that once upon a time required no copays or fees), and hurts the taxpayers who still have to pay to pad some CEO’s salary.
just imagine what our economy might be doing if the GOP Congress didn’t cut everything to the bone of the public workforce and the same thing has happened in the states
This is why having a Democratic Congress is so important.
all good news brings out the “Liberal Yeah But Club”
You know we can celebrate good news and still understand that there are still things that need to improve right?
Another great post, Mr. Longman. But, it’s not Obama that “deserves credit” for job growth. I get your point, but it’s mis-stating it at least, to say, over and over again, that the president deserves credit. Who deserves credit? It’s the folks that work their asses off every day that deserve credit for expanding the job market. The job workers, fer fuck’s sake. Despite Congress’s, and the Fed’s, and the super-rich’s relentless drive to kill jobs, to keep the cost of labor low so more profits on their capital, it’s labor that creates the jobs after all by doing their jobs, hard, day after god damn day, despite the insecurity, despite the lack of hope for a better future, despite the sheer exhaustion, that adds jobs. It’s about time labor gets the credit for job creation in this country, and everywhere else. The president may pay the idea of “more jobs” a lot of lip service, with or without the help of Congress, but after all it doesn’t make a hill-of-beans worth of difference. In the end, it’s workers make more jobs, so let’s start giving ourselves credit for it; not the president. Presidents owe their jobs to us. Not the other way around. That’s how economies (and democracies) actually work.
Damn straight.
Good for Obama. Isn’t it time, though, for us all to stop pretending that government policy creates jobs? No doubt it can do things to screw up the economy but they don’t create demand (except for weapons systems) all that often. By all means let’s have the infrastructure spending we need, but the vast majority of demand for goods and services comes from people just living their lives.