Administration’s Job Projections Miss The Mark

[LiberalFighter]

Latest forecast would need unlikely 460,000 new jobs every month to come true

After a lackluster 2003 in which job creation fell 2.1 million jobs short of the administration’s projections for the year, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers has responded with another overly optimistic projection. Not only did the 1.7 million increase in new jobs that the CEA had projected, on average, for 2003 fail to materialize, we actually lost 400,000 jobs.

The CEA’s new claim that in 2004 the average number of jobs will be 2.6 million higher than in 2003 is out of sync with labor market realities, according to three experts from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute. Reaching that level of job creation would require growth averaging 460,000 new jobs every month from now through December 2004.

A new report issued jointly today by the two research groups offers a detailed indictment of the administration’s jobs projections over the past two years and spotlights the administration’s failure to revive the sagging labor market.

The report notes that the CEA’s unduly optimistic projections have forced the administration to continually shift the target as actual job creation falls short of the projections. The report notes that the CEA has downgraded its projections for employment in 2004 from the 138.3 million forecast in 2002 to 135.2 million in its 2003 forecast and now to 132.7 million in this latest forecast. Even so, the rate of job growth required to reach even this scaled back target is far beyond any recent performance in the economy.

[acmavm]

1. Oh really? And exactly where and how were these jobs supposed to

materialize? Out of the Amazing Kreskins butt? Give me five minutes with these morons and I could probably explain to them that giving jobs to everyone in India and China really isn't going to be much help to anyone here.

[brokensymmetry]

2. Even the Wall Street Journal disagrees.

The consensus of economists is that unemployment will drop to 5.4% by November. That doesn't begin to address underemployment or those who have given up.