Bush apologists used to note that the current unemployment rate is near the average during the Clinton years, which forgets that unemployment fell during Clinton’s Administration and has increased under the current Administration. Now they are comparing to the current 5.4% unemployment rate to the average rate since 1948, which has been 5.6%. This comparison […]

Kevin Drum wrote a post about Bush’s statement during the debate that he has restrained spending growth. As Kevin points out, his statement turns up into down and black into white. However, Bush didn’t pull his figures out of thin air. The exact phrasing of his statement was “Non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending was raising [sic] […]

Was it just me, or did Bush come across as pretty angry and defensive? A couple of times, it seemed to me that he was so agressive with his answers that he was almost yelling at the poor person asking the question. Did anyone else have that impression? However, while Kerry was speaking Bush did […]

With today’s new employment numbers we can now take a fairly complete look at the overall performance of the economy during Bush’s entire term in office. This is a stretch of nearly four years, which (as I mentioned in my earlier post) is probably a long enough period of time to allow the economic policies […]

Maybe the only way for Bush to spin the employment report is to mention that the unemployment rate stayed at 5.4%. But this is because the civilian labor force fell by 221,000 as the household survey of employment fell by 201,000. The labor force participation rate fell to 65.9 percent and the employment-to-population ratio fell […]

We now have the final employment figures that both sides can use down the home stretch of the campaign. The Bush campaign can truthfully state that 1.71 million new jobs have been created in the last year (or 1.78 million new jobs since August 2003). But when hearing such numbers, always remember to apply context: […]

The BLS numbers are out, and they are significantly below expectations: Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend upward in September, increasing by 96,000, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Over the prior 3 months, payroll employment rose by 103,000 […]

Governor George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign promised that 5 million new jobs would be created over his 4-years in office if he were to become President. That would have represented about a 1% per year increase in employment, which is about how fast labor supply increases each year. The Payroll Survey numbers from […]

Tomorrow the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) will release what is probably the most important economic statistic we’ll get between now and the election. As such, it will color the tenor of the remaining 3 1/2 weeks of the campaign. Here are some stories (in no particular order) to help get you primed for tomorrow […]

Cheney’s reaction to the report on Iraq’s WMDs that was released yesterday: MIAMI – Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that Saddam Hussein’s government produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush’s decision to go to war. […]