October 08, 2004, 2:31 p.m.
332,000 New Jobs
This is bad news?

If CBS News is your Oracle of Delphi, then the headline of this edition of BuzzCharts probably comes as a bit of a shock. You thought that the U.S. economy had only created 96,000 new jobs in September, as the media announced on Friday. You’re partly right. You’re also partly wrong.

In September, the economy created only 96,000 payroll jobs, but we also learned in Friday’s Labor Department release that the government found an additional 236,000 jobs that it had missed in previous counts. This is no surprise to readers of BuzzCharts, who have been told repeatedly that during periods of economic recovery the initial estimates of job creation are almost always lower than the final real counts turn out to be. As we pointed out previously, in all five of the recessions that occurred since 1960, the initial job reports turned out to be inaccurately low. This last one makes it six.

BuzzCharts is concerned that the Bush administration may be “holding out” for better numbers to come along. This is a mistake. Friday’s was the final major jobs release before the election, and the administration has to do the hard work of cutting through negative media bias in favor of presenting a full-orbed view of our current recovery. The president has to insist that Americans count all of the new jobs. By this standard, we learn today that new jobs have been created for a third of a million citizens — any attempt to portray that fact as bad news should be vigorously rebutted.

— Jerry Bowyer is the author of The Bush Boom and an economic advisor to Blue Vase Capital Management. He can be reached through www.BowyerMedia.com.

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