Jobs Report

Why is it I am a cynic about the new jobs report showing unemployment is down? Why is it I think the figures were cooked to help Obama in the waning weeks of this campaign, especially in light of his totally blah debate performance?

I think those figures are a bunch of bullshit. It is still extremely difficult to find stable, full-time employment of ANY kind (other than what Rocky Anderson referred to in the "extended" debate of Wednesday night of waitstaff and sales jobs, both of which are notorious for high turnover), especially if you are over 50 and college educated.

You don't need to be Jack Welch to think the figures were cooked for political effect:

Even if one takes the government’s jobs report for good coin, it provides no cause for celebration. More than half of the reported gain in employment was accounted for by a sharp rise in the number of people working part-time but wanting a full-time job. The number of involuntary part-time workers soared from about 8 million to 8.6 million, a 581,000 increase.

Full-time employment, according to the BLS, fell in September by 216,000. Partly because of the huge number of people forced to take part-time jobs, the Labor Department’s broad measure of unemployment, which includes involuntary part-timers and those who have given up looking for work, remained at 14.7 percent—some 23 million people.

Long-term unemployment continues at post-Depression record rates. Two-fifths of the unemployed in September—4.8 million people—had been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer. The real attitude of Obama and both big-business parties is summed up in their bipartisan agreement earlier this year to cut the duration of federally funded extended jobless benefits and the likelihood that they will allow the program to lapse when it expires January 1.