from the print partners of msnbc, this morning:
President Barack Obama’s convention honeymoon lasted all of eight hours.
As soon as the president jetted out from a mostly successful convention here, he had to address another dismal jobs report suggesting the entire rationale for his campaign — that the economy is moving in the right direction, so just hold on tight — might be dead wrong.
The latest jobs report showed the nation added just 96,000 jobs in August, a big drop from July and well below expectations. The unemployment rate dropped from 8.3 percent to 8.1 percent, but it did so for the worst possible reason: discouraged workers dropping out of a shrinking labor force.
There was nowhere to hide in a report that painted a picture of an anemic economic recovery that seems unable to take flight and ease the lingering concern among voters that a president they still like personally has nonetheless failed in his main task of boosting growth and jobs. The poor report from the Labor Department took on added significance for Obama after a convention acceptance speech that received decidedly mixed reviews — even from sympathetic Democrats in Charlotte — and included nothing new in the way of policy initiatives or fresh approaches to job creation.
Obama on Friday returned to his consistent theme that while growth is not fast enough, the nation has now created more than 4 million new jobs in 30 straight months of employment growth since the crisis bottomed out in 2010.
Politico: Jobs report challenges Obama
those 4 million jobs president punt pounds his chest over, 58% of em, earn between $7.69 and $13.83
Majority of new jobs in recovery are low-paying, study finds - latimes.com
middle class incomes have fallen (some $4000) nearly TWICE as fast AFTER the end of the recession than they declined DURING the deepest dark days of this dismal barack hussein obama "recovery"
Household income fell 4.8% during economic recovery, study finds - latimes.com
are these people lying to you?
ap, aug 15:
U.S. Economic Recovery Is Weakest Since World War II
The recession that ended three years ago this summer has been followed by the feeblest economic recovery since the Great Depression. Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest.
America's gross domestic product – the broadest measure of economic output – grew 6.8 percent from the April-June quarter of 2009 through the same quarter this year, the slowest in the first three years of a postwar recovery. GDP grew an average of 15.5 percent in the first three years of the eight other comebacks analyzed.
Consumer spending has grown just 6.5 percent since the recession ended, feeblest in a postwar recovery. In the first three years of previous recoveries, spending rose an average of nearly 14 percent.
The economy shed a staggering 8.8 million jobs during and shortly after the recession. Since employment hit bottom, the economy has created just over 4 million jobs. So the new hiring has replaced 46 percent of the lost jobs, by far the worst performance since World War II. In the previous eight recoveries, the economy had regained more than 350 percent of the jobs lost, on average.
Never before have so many Americans been unemployed for so long three years into a recovery. Nearly 5.2 million have been out of work for six months or more. The long-term unemployed account for 41 percent of the jobless; the highest mark in the other recoveries was 22 percent.
Adjusted for inflation, wages have fallen 0.8 percent. In the previous five recoveries - the records go back only to 1964 – real wages had gone up an average 1.5 percent at this point.
romney on friendly fox pounced:
"after the party last night, the hangover today, for almost every net new job created approximately four dropped out of the workforce”
"real incomes, real wages are also not rising, there's almost nothing the president has done in the past four years that gives the American people confidence that he knows what he’s doing when it comes to jobs and the economy”
"he laid out a few new promises, but the old promises he gave he didn’t report on... because he was unable to fulfill the old promises”
ryan in LA:
"if borrowing and spending and regulating and taxing were the secret to economic success, we would be entering a golden age along with greece"
"it's not, it doesn't work, we need sound money, low tax rates, fiscal discipline, regulatory certainty, and we need to stop this notion of a government-driven economy"
"obama promised that his more than $800 billion stimulus program would pull unemployment down closer to 6 percent, but it has remained above 8 percent throughout his term in office"
"this is not even close to what recovery looks like," concluded the wonk
'This Is Not What Recovery Looks Like': Ryan Tells CNBC - U.S. Election 2012 - CNBC
not what a recovery looks like---isn't that what ap said?
actually, it's not even ap doing the talking, it's more what bill clinton would call "arithmetic"