The Sandwich Democratic Town Committee

The employment report for September produced startling results but that didn’t stop Republicans from trying mightily to “spin” the report in their favor.  Don’t fall for it! There are some critical facts in that report that we should keep in mind whenever we discuss the economy and employment with friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

• 114,000 new private sector jobs created in September: this is not great of course but it does display continued upward growth in the job market;
• The unemployment rate dropped to 7.8%: in the past critics could point to a decline as possibly coming from people giving up on finding work and who therefore dropped out of the job market, but not this time…
• A whopping 873,000 more people reported being employed than in the previous month. Note that this number comes from household surveys and is therefore distinct from the “new” jobs number which is focused on new positions created in the private sector.
• The unemployment rate (7.8%) and the number of unemployed (12.1 million) match where those numbers stood when President Obama was unaugurated, before the full brunt of the Great Recession had manifested itself.
• +325,000: The economy has now gotten back all of the jobs lost since January, 2009, and then some.

It’s hard to believe that Republican candidates and members of Congress actually hope ill for the economy and people’s employment but that sure seems like what they are doing.  They were so bewildered by the good numbers for September that they actually went on a campaign of accusing Democrats of cooking the books, falsifying the report by shaping it to make the President look good as he runs for re-election.  Just about everyone honest observer, including Republicans, condemned that effort as irresponsible and wildly off the mark.

Source: Huffington Post