Jobs numbers

The data is in and last months job creation number is below expectations. Non-farm payroll jobs increased by only 32,000 this month, which is way below expectations. On the flip side, the unemployment rate dropped from 5.6% to 5.5%. Surely the liberal media is going to give the Kerry campaign lots to play with here, but the reality of the situation is that our employment numbers are fine.

The media and the Kerry campaign will decry the mere 32,000 jobs created and 5.5% rate of unemployment as sure sign that the Bush campaign is a malignent cancer, probably put in place by the Saudi Royal Family, that must be thrown out in order to go back to the days of "low unemployment."

But, as Steve Antler points out, strong evidence exists that without the tech boom the lowest rate of unemployment during the 1990's boom would have been 5.5%

http://www.econopundit.com/archive/2003_09_01_econopundit_archive.html#106286508959156382

This supports my contention, and the contention of most economists, that America's natural rate of unemployment is somewhere around 5.5%, which is what our current rate currently is. This means that economy is back at full employment and growing at its natural rate.

If this is the case, it is impossible to get the unemployment rate back to its low of 4.0% without experiencing sustained and harmful inflation, which is worse than the supposed cure.

No matter, though the real economic data supports the evidence for a robust recovery, the Kerry campaign and their allies in the media will get nice news clips out of this.