September 3, 2004

NOW JUST GET THE 2 MILLION A YEAR TO 3:

August Unemployment Dips to 5.4 Percent (Reuters, September 03, 2004)

The U.S. job market brightened in August as employers added 144,000 workers to their payrolls and hiring totals for the two prior months were revised up, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

With the economy growing in importance as an issue in November presidential elections, the department said the August unemployment rate dropped to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent in July. It was the lowest rate since a matching 5.4 percent in October 2001 and was certain to be cited by President Bush as a sign that his tax cuts have helped stimulate economic activity.


Kind of surprising the President didn't announce the numbers last night, since it would have given him a chance to argue steady job growth and falling unemployment, but there may have been ethical considerations involved.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 3, 2004 9:00 AM
Comments

I think there are ethical considerations involved since he would have been announcing important economic data at 11 p.m. while the markets were closed rather than at 8:30 a.m. as the markets were opening. I remember an incident a few years ago when an economic report was accidentally posted to a govt web site a day early and the markets and govt watchdogs went nuts.
Also it might have been seen as a cheap stunt and might have diverted attention from the rest of his (overly fine) speech.

Posted by: AWW at September 3, 2004 10:18 AM

It is better to have the facts after the speech back up the statements in the speech. It merely reinforces the truth of the matter.

Posted by: Bart at September 3, 2004 10:50 AM

Why bother and give Treebeard one more thing to haroom about. Why not just have another talking point for today?

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 3, 2004 11:03 AM

Also, the Dem's are starting to run $50M in ads about the economy today. Running them concurrent with this announcement will make them look sillier.

Posted by: Jeff at September 3, 2004 11:13 AM

Stunning as it is to many, politics are kept out of the numbers. No one outside of the office in the BLS that puts them together sees them until they are released--the trash isn't even picked up for several days before the release. There was a good article about the process in the Post several months ago.

Posted by: jsmith at September 6, 2004 9:24 AM
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