Marketplace, August 4, 2004
Heads up. This Friday's July jobs report will be among the three most important economic reports issued during the presidential campaign. That's because there are only three jobs reports left before Election Day. These monthly reports -- especially the payroll survey, which shows how many new jobs were created during the month -- are bellwethers for the entire economy. And, obviously, how the economy is doing is a big part of how Americans conclude the president is doing.
The magic number this Friday is 380,000. That's the number of new jobs the President needs to show in July, as well as another 380,000 in August and another 380,000 in September, in order to credibly claim there's been no net job loss during his presidency. (The October number won't be released until the Friday after the election.) So unless these goals are met, you can bet Democrats will remind the public that George W. Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover was in the White House to preside over an economy that actually lost jobs during his term of office.
This Friday's job report has the added significance of being the last report before the Republican National Convention. So it will obviously color what's said there about the Bush economy, and what Democrats say in response.
Finally, and not the least, the report will be an important indicator about whether the economic expansion is stalling. One ominous sign came last Friday when the government reported a sharp drop in consumer spending in the second quarter. You may also remember that the June jobs report was a big disappointment. It showed only 112,000 new jobs that month. The country needs at least 125,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth. If this Friday's report is another downer, it's not just the Bush administration that's in trouble. We're all in trouble.
By the way, these numbers won't be fudged for political purposes. They come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is extremely reliable. If any economist or analyst at the BLS sensed that politicians were tampering with the employment numbers, you'd hear a yell from the BLS office in Washington that would be so loud it could be heard on Wall Street.
In other words, listen carefully Friday morning, 8:30 a.m. eastern time. That's when that all-important jobs number will be released.
