Last month 236,000 net jobs were created and the unemployment rate dropped from 7.9 to 7.7%. Though the media buries this fact, the likely reason for the drop in the unemployment rate is that 130,000 people abandoned the labor force. As far as job creation, we’ve seen Februarys like this before.
In February of last year, 271,000 jobs were created. And just as we’re seeing today, the February 2012 jobs’ number was hailed as a sign that Obamanomics had finally kicked in and the economy had at long last turned a corner. Unfortunately, that ended up not being the case. February of 2012 was an outlier in job creation. What followed was more anemic job growth. And the likely explanation is the weather.
Unseasonably warm temperatures might have everything to do with both February of 2012 and 2013 looking so good job-wise. Warmer weather means the construction season starts earlier, which means a spurt in job creation. This doesn’t mean, however, that more jobs are created — just that jobs usually created in March and April are front-loaded into February. The result is an artificial sugar high in job creation.
Naturally, though, in its desire to protect Barack Obama and government largess, absolutely none of this historical context is found anywhere in today’s New York Times piece, which was quite obviously written to tee up a sequester win for Barack Obama and bloated government. The entire premise of the piece is that, going forward, last month’s 236,000 new jobs would’ve represented the new normal had that job-killing sequester not kicked in:
The economy picked up speed in February, creating jobs at a pace that would substantially lower the unemployment rate. But Washington could put a stop to that.
Even as analysts hailed a better-than-expected jobs report on Friday that pointed to an acceleration in growth, they warned that stronger employment gains are being put at risk by sequestration, the automatic spending cuts being imposed by the federal government. …
But many experts said if it were not for political gridlock in Washington, which led to the automatic spending reductions on March 1, the performance of the job market and the broader economy would be even more robust in the months ahead.
“It does suggest a bit more cushion heading into the spring, when we will see the bulk of the impact from the sequester and fiscal pullback,” said Michelle Meyer, senior United States economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “This was a good report. It’s hard to poke holes in it. But we think we’ll see some slowdown in April and May because of the sequester.”
While the economy is expected to continue to add enough jobs to keep the jobless rate from rising significantly, estimates like these suggest that without the drag from Washington the labor market might have added, on average, a robust 300,000 jobs a month or so.
Or, you know, unseasonably warm weather could mean a repeat of February 2012. The biggest job gains last month did come from construction.
And, gee, guess who is loving this New York Times propaganda:
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Now that theTimes has manufactured this narrative, Axelrod knows the rest of the media will follow, which means Obama can’t lose. If the sugar high wears off and job growth drops, Obama and his media will blame a 2% cut in the size of a government currently running up annual trillion dollar deficits.
Alternately, if job growth remains strong, The Narrative will be: Imagine how much better it could’ve been had we not cut spending!
The New York Times is lying — lies of omission are still lies, and this entire piece is a blatant lie.
We are about to see an extraordinary propaganda push from Obama, Democrats, and the media. If they can convince enough people that even the smallest reduction in government spending will result in a weak economy, the left will have achieved a change in American thinking they’ve dreamt of for decades.
They will, of course, ignore the fact that our economy has been in the dumpster through four whole years of government largess and that the eighties and nineties proved that getting government out of the way creates economic boom times.
The stakes are epic — even bigger than reelecting Obama. This means the media is about to do the impossible and become even more shameless.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC