Bill - enjoy the site.
The economy is improving but not yet so strong that it is obvious. The Dems and media are working overtime to portray the economy as the worst ever. Example - saw a writeup on today's +112K jobs by Reuters saying "weak job growth number weakens Bush's reelection effort". I'm afraid that they will do what they did in '92 - convince the voters the economy is much worse than it actually is to oust a President Bush

Check out the spin discovered by Jeff Jarvis. NY Times is reporting that just 112,000 jobs were created in January, far fewer than expected...

And here I thought this new guy Bill Keller is supposed to stop with this bash Bush at all cost bull.

"I'm afraid that they will do what they did in '92 - convince the voters the economy is much worse than it actually is to oust a President Bush"

That's a good point, but this time the public is on our side. Check out these polls...www.americanresearchgroup.com/economy. Only 17% believe the economy is in a recession.

I gave up on the Associated Press awhile ago. They should just call themselves the DNC Newsletter.

-Newcomer to web site

Why don't you mention how many people are off the unemployment roll and are not counted in your posted figures.

Why don't you mention the 3 million people who created their own employment by going into business for themselves or starting small businesses - jobs that don't show up immediately in the "employer survey" that underlies the job growth report but DO mean the actual employment picture is far better than is being portrayed?

3 million? What's your source on that?

You could just check the Bureau of Labor statistics website and look for household employment numbers. Turns out about 3.5M more people are employed today than in January 2001. By the way, what's your source for how many people are "off the unemployment roll" and what, exactly, do you mean by that? After all, if I'm on the roll then get a job I'm off the roll. Do you mean to imply that everyone who was ever on the unemployment rolls but now has a job should also be counted as unemployed? How about people who die? They are off the rolls. Do they count as unemployed? (Well, I suppose they're not exactly employed any longer.)

Do you mean "discouraged workers?" Those who quit looking? What were their qualifications in the first place? Are they willing to move to get a job? Clarification, please.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/2004/01/11/business/7677932.htm

From the Beacon Journal of Ohio

Employers don't seem optimistic
Unemployment rate declines, but 300,000 give up hunt for jobs
By Bruce Meyerson
Associated Press

NEW YORK - The confidence that has been so contagious among investors just hasn't caught on with employers.

The Labor Department's December report issued Friday showed that employers are not quite as optimistic as Wall Street has been about what's ahead in the coming year. And so, while lower hiring levels may be a key factor in the strong profit reports investors are expecting, the job data left investors feeling a little tentative.

Less than a week old, the bull market of 2004 succumbed to the uncertainty in a hurry. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 130 points Friday, wiping out most of early January's gains.

Whether that slide proves short-lived will depend largely on whether companies fulfill the market's optimistic profit forecasts for the fourth quarter.

``We'll certainly get some good news there,'' said Chuck Hill, director of research at Thomson First Call, which tracks Wall Street profit forecasts. Based on the latest projections and some early results, the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index are expected to show 22 percent growth in profits compared with the final quarter of 2002.

``We're going to have the best earnings growth in 10 years,'' said Hill. But, he cautioned, ``It's not sustainable.''

And while some marquee names such as Intel Corp. and General Electric Co. are slated to report their fourth-quarter results in the coming week, the reporting season won't kick into high gear until the following week.

In the meantime, investors will be left to ponder the ramifications of the employment report, which actually may say a lot more about how strong corporate earnings will be this year than in the final months of 2003.

On its surface, the report appeared encouraging, showing that unemployment dropped to a 14-month low of 5.7 percent in December. However, the national roll call of workers showed a paltry net gain of just 1,000 jobs.

So rather than an upswing in hiring, the drop in unemployment actually signaled a collective burst of frustration: More than 300,000 people gave up their search for jobs, and therefore were no longer counted as unemployed under the government's method of calculation.

Economists worry that such pessimism will translate into tighter consumer purse strings. Those not working stop spending from savings to maintain the same lifestyle, and their family members turn more cautious.

Despite Friday's decline, all the indexes were up for the week. The Dow, which had its seventh straight weekly advance, rose 49.04, or 0.5 percent, closing at 10,458.89.

The Nasdaq composite index was up 80.24, or 4 percent, at 2,086.92, its third straight up week. On Thursday, the Nasdaq also had its first close above 2,100 in 2 ½ years.

Economy picking up? Maybe. Foreign confidence is still down, government income is down, spending is up and enough people are still getting fired (and staying fired) that a job recovery is still a ways away.

Like it or not, the average unemployment time is still well over a year. Until that drops to a normal 3-6 months people who aren't employed or who are unhappily employed won't care what the numbers say.

Found this article on the DNC website. I wonder where he got his figures. Beneath the article, are the stats I obtained from the Census Bureau.

M. Perry

Once Again, Bush's Rhetoric Doesn't Match the Reality
Washington, D.C. — In a speech on Port Security today, Bush claimed that more than fifty percent of minority families own their own home. But statistics maintained by his own Department of Housing and Urban Development called his claim into question. HUD shows that fewer than half of all Hispanic and African American families, the two largest minority groups in the US, own their own home. Bush's rhetoric indicates his intent to use minority homeownership as a major issue in his re-election campaign, but it hides a startling reality — that Hispanic homeownership rates have fallen and those of African Americans have stagnated in the Bush economy, and that the only movement in the gap between white and Hispanic homeowners has increased under Bush's stewardship.

THE RHETORIC

"…most minority households own their own homes. We're closing the housing gap in America." -George W. Bush, Remarks on Port Security in Charleston, SC, 2/5/04

THE REALITY

48.7 percent of African American families own their own home
46.1 percent of all Hispanics own their own home.
Minority homeownership gap has increased under Bush.
The African American homeownership gap has grown 5 percent under Bush.
The Hispanic homeownership gap has increased over 12 percent under Bush.
"The truth is, African American homeownership has stagnated and Hispanic homeownership has decreased under this President after growing at record levels during the Clinton Administration," said Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe. "For President Bush to try and claim otherwise when his own agency disputes his rhetoric is another example of this President attempting to distort his dismal record and policies

Homeownership statistics the US Census Bureau:

2001-2003 Homeownership rates:
Whites: 67.5 to 68.6
Blacks: from 47.6 to 49.4
Hispanics: 46.1 to 47.7
All other races: 53.9 to 56.8

AND THIS IS DURING A RECESSION. In addition, the Dems have said that the economy under Bush has been a disaster. Pretty good rates for such a "dismal" economy.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/q403prss.pdf

1997-2000 Homeownership rates:
Whites: 65.7 to 67.4
Blacks: 44.8 to 47.2
Hispanics: 43.3 to 46.3
All other races: 52.5 to 53.5

Seems like it should've grown a whole lot more since this was supposed to be the "biggest economic boom in history". http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/annual00/ann00t20.html

How many are going to school?

OECD says this:

The US economy strengthened considerably in December, leading the global economic recovery and leaving Europe and Japan behind, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said today. The upbeat assessment of the US economy from the OECD came just hours ahead of a meeting of finance ministers from the G7 group of leading industrialised countries, with the weakness of the dollar the prime subject of concern. "Moderate to strong recovery lies ahead in the OECD area," the organisation said in a statement. "December data signal continued strong improvement in the United States but weaker development for Italy."

For the 30-nation membership of the OECD, the December leading indicator - a pointer of future economic activity - rose to 123.6 from 122.8 in November. The reading for the US was 133.3 (up from 131.7), the 12-nation euro currency zone struggled up to 123.8 (from 123.5), and Japan managed a weak increase of 0.2 to 102.3. Of the G7 economies, only Italy showed weaker development, its index slipping to 106.3 in December from 107.8 in November. The OECD’s data will give John Snow, the US treasury secretary, something to crow about amid unease - especially in the eurozone - at the fall of the dollar, which threatens to hurt European exports and, by extension, the fledgling recovery in continental Europe.

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And then there's a bunch of whining how we don't care for Europe. Geez, I remember that in the 80s, too high whine, too low, whine.

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And who do we blame, Bill?

Also, considering December was adjusted up by 15K, what are the odds January will also be revised upwards?

And $291 BILLION flowed into mutual funds in 2003, comparable to 1993 and 1997. 2002 was $170B. Don't know how much flowed directly into stocks.

Scrappleface says:

ScrappleFace
(2004-02-06) -- Economists today lamented news of the fifth straight monthly increase in non-farm jobs because it fell short of the figure they had predicted.

Only 112,000 new jobs were created in January, not the expected 150,000, due largely to a continuing slump in the economic forecasting industry.

"Nobody’s hiring experts to predict what the economy will do anymore," said an unnamed spokesman for the Union of Economic Forecasters (UEF). "Maybe it’s because the predictions are rarely accurate and every time the news breaks that the economy fell short of predictions, the stock market slumps. But at the UEF, we still think there’s a need for professionals who make self-fulfilling economic prophesies. In fact, we predict that in February, almost 300,000 new jobs will be created for economic forecasters."

Why don't you mention how many people are off the unemployment roll and are not counted in your posted figures.

That figure is monitored by the BLS. It's roughly 450,000. I could find a link to this, but I don't feel like searching right now; it's been discussed on EconoPundit in the past, if you want to search his archives.

In any case, 450,000 isn't enough to make a big dent in unemployment figures one way or the other.