Three-Month Average of Job Creation Plummets

Three-Month Average of Job Creation Plummets

The American economy has created 78,000 fewer jobs per month over the last three months as compared to the previous three months. Between December of 2012 and February of 2013, 699,000 jobs were created, for an average of 233,000. Between March and May of 2013, however, the economy created only 466,000 jobs, for an average of 155,000 jobs.

NBC News’ Chuck Todd deserved credit for reporting this troubling fact on his MSNBC show “The Daily Rundown,” but another troubling fact is that most of the media are celebrating today’s numbers in a vacuum when the overall trend is a little chilling. There were also revisions to the last two months that resulted in a net loss of 12,000 jobs.

Also, now that the unemployment rate has crept back up (7.5% to 7.6%), the media have suddenly discovered the labor participation rate, something they all but ignored when the unemployment rate was going down — not due to job creation, but because millions were giving up in their search for work. Now that a fraction of those who fled are returning, the media are claiming the rise in the unemployment rate is good news!

See how this works? Whether the unemployment rises or falls, Obama freakin’ rules!

Anyway, there are other signs the economy is heading in the wrong direction. Manufacturing shrunk in May to a four-year low, consumer spending (a big driver of the economy) declined in April, wages and wealth remained stagnant.

Regardless, what we can all agree on is that things need to be better and could have been better had Obama done what Ronald Reagan did to get us out of Carter’s malaise and had not instead chosen to explode the size of government and the drug of dependency that goes with it.

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC  

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.