Here’s a joke which was circulating among Wall Street traders last Friday: “Fewer jobs were created in the US in the entire month of July than the number of people who will be inside Madison Square Garden for the GOP convention at the end of August.”
If the latest jobs report, issued monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is any indication–with only 32,000 new jobs added in July, far below the expectations of most analysts–George W. is squarely on track to share the dubious distinction with Herbert Hoover of being the only president in American history to preside over an economy in which jobs have declined.
Bush needs a monthly average of 380,000 new jobs in July, August and September to claim, before the election, that more jobs have been created than lost during his first term. Right now, it doesn’t look like he’s going to get anywhere near those numbers. Not only was July the worst month for job growth since last December, according to the BLS, but June’s jobs report had to be revised down from its original estimate.
Thus, over the last two months, job growth averaged 55,000 per month, way off the growth pace earlier this year, when monthly employment growth averaged 225,000. Moreover, the weak job market continues to place downward pressure on wage growth, which continues to lag behind inflation.
Meanwhile, Bush may brag that many of the jobs created over the past year have been “in high-growth, high-paying industries,” but according to USA Today, “jobs in lower-wage industries and regions are growing at a faster pace than higher-wage jobs.” As a result, the job growth that has occurred “is less potent for the economy because the majority of new work isn’t accompanied by fat paychecks.”
This assessment is shared by the mainstream of the economics community. As Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, was quoted today in the New York Times, “Since employment peaked, we’ve lost many more higher-paying jobs than lower-paying ones. In recovery, we’ve created more lower-paying jobs than higher-paying ones.”
And with the federal budget on track to grow to a record-breaking $445 billion in fiscal year 2004 (last year the Administration projected the 2004 figure to be $307 billion), and the rolls of people without health insurance increasing by 3.7 million, Bush’s economic record should be an easy target–and a winning electoral issue for John Kerry.
