Unemployment data for May is out. On the surface, it looks like real improvement:
The U.S. Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls rose by 431,000 last month, the largest gain since March 2000. That followed an unrevised 290,000 increase in April.(...)
Taking into account revisions to prior months, the U.S. economy added an average of nearly 200,000 jobs a month in the January-May period, a positive sign for the job market as it recover from the worst recession since the 1930s.
Also, U6 really fell fast:
An alternative measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those forced to work part-time because of the weak economy, fell to 16.6% from 17.1%.
Not bad! Unfortunately, its all pretty much due to the census:
However, the May figure was boosted by the hiring of 411,000 temporary workers for the decennial count of the U.S. population. Only 41,000 private-sector jobs were added.
And, in terms of the percentages, to people dropping out of the labor force:
The unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 9.7% in May from 9.9% in April, according to a separate survey of 60,000 households. Economists were expecting the jobless rate to sink to 9.8%.
The decline wasn't particularly good news, however, because the drop was due to 322,000 people dropping out of the labor force. While unemployment dropped by 287,000 to 15 million, employment also fell, dipping 35,000 to 139.4 million.
Not great. What's worse, long-term unemployment is at an all-time high:
Long-term U.S. unemployment, which measures the proportion of unemployed workers who have been jobless for over six months, is at the highest rate since economists began measuring it in 1948. Of America's jobless , 45.9 percent are considered long-term unemployed, for a total of about 7 million workers.
Given both these numbers and the approaching 2010 elections, it is worth remembering why Democrats did so well in the 1934 and 1936 elections, after sweeping into power in 1932 in worse economic conditions than our own:
Avoiding labels will not help Democrats at the ballot box one iota. Only stimulating our economy and creating jobs will do that. FDR and Democrats did not win landslide victories in 1934 and 1936 by engaging in a Hoover-like attempt to freeze spending and pay down the debt during a time of crisis. They spent, and spent big--resulting in Asian Tiger-like a GDP growth of 10.9% in 1934, 8.9% in 1935, and 13.0% in 1936.
If you want to know why Democrats and FDR did so well in 1934 and 1936, it is because they delivered results. Huge, huge GDP growth. The Obama administration and Congressional Democrats are not delivering anything close to that.
Unemployment and GDP growth are very different measures of the state economy. Still, the point here should be clear. The path to electoral victory for a governing party is to deliver big-time, positive results. Right now, Democrats are not delivering those results with nearly the speed nor breadth which the population demands. As such, right now electoral forecasts show Republicans ready to make big gains.
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