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Via CNN/Money:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/05/news/economy/september-jobs-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

...Commentators from both sides of the political spectrum were quick to jump on the numbers Friday morning as both a sign that the job market has improved recently, and that economic growth remains far too slow to pull millions of Americans out of unemployment.
Both points are correct...

So what will the impact be on the election?

I don't see how new jobs are less than 120,000 yet the unemployment rate suddenly falls .3%. Must be that new math.

The London Evening Standard pointed out that while more jobs have been created than have been lost since 2008 (over 4 million) the growth of population has outpaced that, so unemployment is still rising.

Its because Unemployment rates don't count discouraged workers, which is defined as anyone thats been out of work for a certain period of time(can't remember what the exact time is, 6 months maybe?) or stops looking for a job.

So even if no new jobs are created the unemployment rate will still go down.

The actual unemployment rate is always much higher then it actually is, so its probably around 15% if discouraged workers are included.

 Frazzled wrote:
I don't see how new jobs are less than 120,000 yet the unemployment rate suddenly falls .3%. Must be that new math.

No, its new definitions.

 d-usa wrote:

So what will the impact be on the election?

Probably pretty minimal. I could be wrong, but I doubt most Americans truly follow economic indicators. It's more a case of waiting for the experts to say, "Amazing news! We're so far out of the woods we're on the beach sipping mai tais!"

If the rate had dropped to the normal rate of 5% then it might effect the Election in a measurable way.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The London Evening Standard pointed out that while more jobs have been created than have been lost since 2008 (over 4 million) the growth of population has outpaced that, so unemployment is still rising.

Immigration, and specifically illegal immigration and the numbers of resident illegals has fallen since the recession started. Is that accounted for in that? A movement towards those jobs from being counted within standard birth statistics could alter the numbers a few points.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
If the rate had dropped to the normal rate of 5% then it might effect the Election in a measurable way.

If the rate dropped to 5% Obama would be winning by 20 points. A visible end to backsliding unemployment numbers should be a pretty visible boost to the president, though it might not effect actual voting patterns much at all.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The London Evening Standard pointed out that while more jobs have been created than have been lost since 2008 (over 4 million) the growth of population has outpaced that, so unemployment is still rising.

Immigration, and specifically illegal immigration and the numbers of resident illegals has fallen since the recession started. Is that accounted for in that? A movement towards those jobs from being counted within standard birth statistics could alter the numbers a few points.

Illegals arn't included in Employment numbers. Only legal residents between the ages of 16 and 55, arn't enrolled in school, are activly looking for a job, or have one are counted.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Illegals arn't included in Employment numbers. Only legal residents between the ages of 16 and 55, arn't enrolled in school, are activly looking for a job, or have one are counted.

Right, he's saying illegal immigration has dropped, so Americans or legal residents are picking up the jobs the illegals would've had.

I believe.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its because Unemployment rates don't count discouraged workers, which is defined as anyone thats been out of work for a certain period of time(can't remember what the exact time is, 6 months maybe?) or stops looking for a job.

So even if no new jobs are created the unemployment rate will still go down.

The actual unemployment rate is always much higher then it actually is, so its probably around 15% if discouraged workers are included.

Did you read the article?

Just asking, because that point is actually addressed fairly early in it.

 Seaward wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Illegals arn't included in Employment numbers. Only legal residents between the ages of 16 and 55, arn't enrolled in school, are activly looking for a job, or have one are counted.

Right, he's saying illegal immigration has dropped, so Americans or legal residents are picking up the jobs the illegals would've had.

I believe.

Except the jobs the majority of illegals take are agricultural jobs, such as picking produce, which the vast majority of people here would not even consider. Even though they pay good money.

I'd sure be nice if people would be willing to do actual labor but we are lazy americans after all.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The London Evening Standard pointed out that while more jobs have been created than have been lost since 2008 (over 4 million) the growth of population has outpaced that, so unemployment is still rising.

Immigration, and specifically illegal immigration and the numbers of resident illegals has fallen since the recession started. Is that accounted for in that? A movement towards those jobs from being counted within standard birth statistics could alter the numbers a few points.

Illegals arn't included in Employment numbers. Only legal residents between the ages of 16 and 55, arn't enrolled in school, are activly looking for a job, or have one are counted.

That can't be correct since the numbers include seasonal temporary work which so far as I know is largely impacted by college students getting vacation time work. That sounds like a very constrained number if it can't count the college going populace which is a large percentage of the population up through aged up to 22-24.


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 Grey Templar wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Illegals arn't included in Employment numbers. Only legal residents between the ages of 16 and 55, arn't enrolled in school, are activly looking for a job, or have one are counted.

Right, he's saying illegal immigration has dropped, so Americans or legal residents are picking up the jobs the illegals would've had.

I believe.

Except the jobs the majority of illegals take are agricultural jobs, such as picking produce, which the vast majority of people here would not even consider. Even though they pay good money.

No, they don't.

They arn't included because of that seasonal fluctuation. Including them would give an unstable picture of the actual economy. They are used for other numbers however.

 Grey Templar wrote:
They arn't included because of that seasonal fluctuation. Including them would give an unstable picture of the actual economy. They are used for other numbers however.

So when they say that the numbers are seasonally adjusted, that's what they mean? Huh, I figured that part was in the basic unemployment statistic and seasonal adjustments were just adjustments based on historical trends to account for short term changes. I suppose seasonal temp work is a short term change.

Exactly. Economics is complicated for the uninitiated. I'm just starting to understand it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Exactly. Economics is complicated for the uninitiated. I'm just starting to understand it.

I think I just ended up assuming that was in there because I've never not heard someone use the seasonally adjusted rate when describing unemployment numbers. The rest of the caveats for what is and isn't in the unemployment numbers was known to me, but that one was kinda out of left field. They should probably just put that in there in the first place, I'm kinda scratching my head as to why they don't.

its because if you include seasonal fluctuations it can give a false picture of the economy.

So we have college students getting part time jobs over the summer. If we included these numbers it could give a false picture that the economy is improving because more people are getting work. Likewise we would register a false economic dip when these students went back to school.

Similer fluctuations would also register for seasonal jobs such as Fishing, Crop harvesting, or Tourist based jobs.


By eliminating these variables we get a picture of whats really going on.

 Grey Templar wrote:
its because if you include seasonal fluctuations it can give a false picture of the economy.

So we have college students getting part time jobs over the summer. If we included these numbers it could give a false picture that the economy is improving because more people are getting work. Likewise we would register a false economic dip when these students went back to school.

Similer fluctuations would also register for seasonal jobs such as Fishing, Crop harvesting, or Tourist based jobs.


By eliminating these variables we get a picture of whats really going on.

That only works insofar as you discount a significant portion of the population, which in and of itself invalidates the employment statistic as a meaningful tool for viewing employment. Seasonal and temporary work is more important to the American population now than it likely has been in decades, discounting it to get a picture of whats really going on would seem to do more damage than good. That's why I thought seasonally adjusted numbers used historical trends to place increases or decreases in temp labor markets at an adjusted rate for the year (which is what it is and is why everyone uses it). That's not something impossible to use in the base report.

Those people are not significant contributers to the economy because of the fluctuation.

The best way to guage the state of the economy is to measure the people with stable jobs that don't fluctuate, they are what actually indicates an economic downturn. hence why the other workers are not measured.

Those people are not significant contributers to the economy because of the fluctuation.

That's inaccurate. Fluctuation =/= insignificant contribution.

The best way to guage the state of the economy is to measure the people with stable jobs that don't fluctuate, they are what actually indicates an economic downturn. hence why the other workers are not measured.

Why is that more accurate than measuring a seasonally adjusted rate? All you're doing is discounting an increasingly significant portion of the economy for the sake of easy math.

Math that shows what the actual picture is. Including them would squew the results depending on the time of year.

Anyone hear about the guy that tweeted this was a product of the Chicago machine? I loled.
But yeah this is the product of more long term unemployed and discouraged workers dropping off than actual employment risig. The timing would be suspicious if it hadn't been coming for awhile.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Math that shows what the actual picture is. Including them would squew the results depending on the time of year.

...

Which is why it's important to metric those using historical trends rather than arbitrarily missing industries. It's not an accurate employment picture when agriculture is missing from it. I'm pretty sure the reason everyone uses seasonally adjusted numbers everywhere all the time is precisely because the base statistic isn't really a strong indicator of current economic performance in a modern U.S. economy with its increasingly transient workforce.

Agriculture isn't a good indicator of the economy anyway, because food consumption doesn't change during an economic downturn very much. Food is cheap enough to where it doesn't fluctuate with the economy, it fluctuates with restrictive legislation and changes in weather.

The Agricultural Industry is very stable.

 AustonT wrote:
Anyone hear about the guy that tweeted this was a product of the Chicago machine? I loled.
But yeah this is the product of more long term unemployed and discouraged workers dropping off than actual employment risig. The timing would be suspicious if it hadn't been coming for awhile.

Second time that commend has been made, and again, did you guys read the article?

Unemployment unexpectedly fell to 7.8% in September, down from 8.1%, as a survey of U.S. households showed 873,000 more Americans had jobs compared to a month earlier.

So not quite a million people got jobs, but the reason the number dropped is because people stopped looking for work?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Agriculture isn't a good indicator of the economy anyway, because food consumption doesn't change during an economic downturn very much. Food is cheap enough to where it doesn't fluctuate with the economy, it fluctuates with restrictive legislation and changes in weather.

The Agricultural Industry is very stable.

I think you're talking past my actual arguments at this point.

It means 873,000 more jobs were added compared to last month, and the Unemployment rate went down. But the 2 are not related. The unemployment rate has dropped because more unemployed people have moved into the discouraged workers class, which is not counted. The jobs added are not responsable for the decline.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If the rate had dropped to the normal rate of 5% then it might effect the Election in a measurable way.

If the economy were adding 500,000 new jobs a months Obama would be ahead by 35 points methinks.

 d-usa wrote:
So not quite a million people got jobs, but the reason the number dropped is because people stopped looking for work?

@d-usa: If you want to understand the Republican perspective on this figure, you'll need to squeeze your eyes tightly shut, put your fingers in your ears, and yell "Obama will destroy civilization" at the very top of your lungs.