President Obama’s re-election chances just got a major boost with unemployment rate dipping under the 8% barrier for the first time since early 2009 when Obama took office. But is it all good news? Not exactly. Stu took a look at the numbers and explained why it's not as great for Obama as he'd like you to think.
TheBlaze has been tracking the key updates of the report as well as some of the reactions. From their coverage:
- Unemployment drops to 44-month low to 7.8%
- However, many are questioning the numbers due to “contradictory data points” such as the total unemployment level soaring but the low net number
- Government says 873K people found work — but reports only 114K new jobs were added
- Former GE CEO alleged fraud, sending a tweet saying “these Chicago guys will do anything”
- Popular finance blog Zero Hedge even called it a “preelection ‘massaging’ farce”
This report will likely have a huge impact on voters going into the final few weeks before the election, and on the surface the dip from 8.1% to 7.8% puts unemployment at its lowest point in four years.
Stu found some interesting figures that the Obama administration probably doesn't want you to know.
"Basically what happened is one jobs measure said a gain of 114,000 jobs, which is basically exactly what economists had predicted. It's a rate that would take until the year 2025 for us to get back to the jobs numbers that we had before the recession, the economic crisis that happened in late 2008. So it's not like a good number, but it's about what they predicted. Shockingly, though, they also predicted the unemployment rate would rise to 8.2%. Instead it fell to 7.8%. That's a gap that almost you never, ever see," Stu said.
"Now, to put that in perspective, one jobs report reported 114,000 new jobs. The other one where the unemployment rate is based reported 873,000 new jobs. 114,000 compared to 873,000. I've never seen a gap like that before in one of these reports. It's gigantic."
"One of the reasons for that is 582,000 brand new spanking part time jobs for people who want full time jobs. So you want to work full time but all you can find is part time; or, you were working full time before and they've cut your hours back and now you're only part time," Stu explained. "One of the reasons for that is 582,000 brand new spanking part time jobs for people who want full time jobs. So you want to work full time but all you can find is part time; or, you were working full time before and they've cut your hours back and now you're only part time."
Get more coverage on the latest job numbers HERE.