July's new jobs of 163K beats forecasts

[MindMover]

The economy added 163,000 new jobs in July, a better-than-expected gain that sent stocks and bonds higher even as the nation's unemployment rate rate ticked up from 8.2% to 8.3%.

Economists said the report doesn't point to significant new momentum, even though forecasters surveyed by Factset had predicted 100,000 new jobs. July's results were only slightly better than the 151,000 monthly average for the year, or even the 133,000 monthly average since employment resumed growing in 2010.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2012-08-03/jobs-july-main/56730980/1

[progree]

1. Updated Jobs Report thru July 31 (using the Aug 3 report), and some bulletpoints

{#} Job Loss and Creation - Payroll Jobs

Factoids (official source follows):

# Under Obama there have been 29 straight months of private sector job growth (since February 2010), totaling 4.5 million jobs (thru July 2012 with June & July preliminary). Total job growth during this period is 4.0 million jobs ( 0.5 million government jobs were lost )

# The economy Bush handed to Obama lost 4.3 million jobs during the last 10 months of the Bush administration. Furthermore, at the end of the Bush administration the rate of job losses was accelerating -- losing 2.28 million jobs just in his last 3 months -- an average of 760,000 lost jobs a month (the average of the last 3 months of the Bush presidency).

# 2.7 million payroll jobs have been created under Obama since June 2009 (that's when the recession ended according to the NBER (nber.org, the official arbiter of when the economic turning points occur), and only 5 months since Obama took office) (thru July 2012 with June & July preliminary) . Bush only created 1.1 million payroll jobs in his entire 8 year presidency

# 3.4 million private sector jobs were created under Obama since June 2009 (thru July 2012 with June & July preliminary) (contrast that to Bush destroying 0.7 million private sector jobs during his presidency)

# Bush's record: created 1.1 million payroll jobs - by creating 1.8 million government jobs and destroying 0.7 million private sector jobs. ( the actual numbers are, in thousands: 1,080, 1,753, 673 ). Yes, it is ironic that a supposed "small government conservative" ended up creating government jobs and destroying private sector jobs.

# The Clinton economy created 22.7 million payroll jobs of which 20.8 million were in the private sector

Official sources of information for the above:

# Payroll Jobs: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
# Monthly change of above: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
# . . Hint: to see both of the above two together on the same page, go to http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001 and click on the "More Formatting Options" link in the upper right and check the "Original Data Value" and the "1-Month Net Change" checkboxes and click the "Retrieve Data" button halfway down the page on the left
# Private Sector Payroll Employment: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000001
# Monthly change of above: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000001?output_view=net_1mth
# . . Hint: to see both of the above two together on the same page, go to http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000001
and click on the "More Formatting Options" link in the upper right and check the "Original Data Value" and the "1-Month Net Change" checkboxes and click the "Retrieve Data" button halfway down the page on the left

This one compares all post-WWII presidents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_terms

{#} Job Loss and Creation - Unemployment Rate, Labor Force Participation Rate

# Unemployment Rate, from 1948 on: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
# Labor Force Participation Rate from 1948 on: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
(on both of the above, you can change the "From" and "To" dates to whatever you want at the top center pulldown boxes)

# Unemployment rate, seas adjusted
(All values are January unemployment rates, specifically Jan 1989, Jan 1993, Jan 2001, Jan 2009), with the exception of the current unemployment rate under Obama, which is the end of last month. If you get into Obama's unemployment rate, it is worthwhile to point out that if one starts from June 2009, when the recession ended according to the NBER (the official arbiter of economic turning points, NBER.org), and just 5 months after Obama took office, then the unemployment rate has been cut by 1.2 percentage points. Obama cannot be blamed for the job losses in his first 5 months, given that the economy Bush handed him was losing 760,000 jobs per month in his last 3 months, and it takes many months to enact and implement new policies and for them to take effect).
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] Bush I: 5.4% to 7.3%, Change= + 1.9%
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] Clinton: 7.3% to 4.2%, Change= - 3.1%
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] Bush II: 4.2% to 7.7%, Change= + 3.5%

[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] Obama's first 5 months: 7.7% to 9.5%, Change= + 1.8% (Jan '09 - May '09)
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] Obama thereafter: 9.5% to 8.3%, Change= - 1.2% (Jun '09 - Jul '12)
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] Obama entire term so far: 7.7% to 8.3%, Change= + 0.6% (Jan '09 - Jul '12)
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] (June 2009, just 5 months after Obama took office, is when the recession ended, per NBER.org)

# Under Bush II, the unemployment rate rose by 3.5 pp (percentage points) while the Civilian Labor Force Participation rate fell 1.5 pp: from 67.2% to 65.7% (had the participation rate stayed the same, the unemployment rate would have risen even further). Contrast that to Clinton, where the unemployment rate dropped 3.1 pp while the Civilian Labor Force Participation rate rose by 1.0 pp. Secret information: Under Obama through July 2012 the unemployment rate rose 0.6 pp while the civilian labor force participation rate fell 2.0 pp, from 65.7% to 63.7%

{#} Job Loss and Creation - Unemployment Insurance Claims

# Unemployment insurance initial claims: http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp

# It peaked at 667,000 initial claims 3/28/09 (2 months after Obama took office) and since then it has shown a steady improvement excepting relatively minor bumps.

# Myth: "those who have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits are not counted as unemployed. If they were counted, the official unemployment rate would be much higher" (you often hear this claim from the RepubliCONS when a Democratic president is in the White House, and vice versa).

# Fact: the count of the unemployed and the unemployment rate is not a count of those receiving unemployment benefits, nor is unemployment benefit receiver status factored at all into any of the official unemployment rate statistics (U3, U4, U5, U6, etc.). Rather, the unemployment rate is based on a survey of 60,000 households chosen at random. See: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm or Google: "Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey"


{#} U.S. Stock Market as measured by the S&P 500

Tired of hearing the righties insist that companies are "too uncertain" to make investments? Well, the investor and business community sure seem to like Obama, considering the stock market. Since Obama took office, the S&P 500 is up _64_% (it declined 37% during G.W. Bush's 8 years of supposed business friendly and resolute firmness and certainty).

# S&P 500: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EGSPC+Historical+Prices
# Dow Jones Industrial Average: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EDJI+Historical+Prices
# Using the last closing before inauguration (G.W. Bush inaugurated noon Jan 20, 2001, Obama at noon, Jan 20, 2009)
. . # When Clinton left office and G.W. Bush took office, the S&P 500 was at 1343.
. . # When G.W. Bush left office and Obama took office, the S&P 500 was at 850.
. . # Thus under G.W. Bush, the S&P 500 dropped 37%, from 1343 to 850. While under Obama, it rose from 850 to 1391 as of Friday 8/3/12 close, up 64%.

(I use the S&P 500 rather than the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) because it is a much broader index of U.S. stocks, containing about 75% of the total U.S. stock market by capitalization. I would rather use the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index (^DWC) but its history extends only back to 2004).

If you want the Dow Jones Industrials Average (an unweighted average of 30 stocks), ticker ^DJI , it is:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EDJI+Historical+Prices
Jan 19, 2001 10,587 Last Dow close under Clinton
Jan 16, 2009 8,281 Last Dow close under Bush (a 22% decline under Bush)
Aug 3, 2012 13,096 Latest Dow close as of this posting (a 58% increase under Obama)

[MindMover]

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