"Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters on average forecast that 148,000 new jobs were created last month -- too few to shrink a relatively low 5.4 percent jobless rate and barely enough to absorb new entrants to the workforce."

We have yet another reporter who doesn't understand the subtle differences between different economic statistics.

To prove that the reporter's thesis is incorrect, just take a look at last month's jobs report: payroll employment increased by 144,000, and the unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent.

Does this mean that the same thing will happen on Friday? No, but it does mean that the unemployment rate can fall even when journalists say it can't.

payrolls expected to be low because of hurricanes

I also fail to see how big an impact one month's numbers will have on the annual adjustment.

A relatively low 5.4% unemployment rate? Only under a republican is 5.4 "decent."

And pray tell, Alan, from a historical perspective, under various DEMOCRATIC Presidents, what would be considered a "decent" unemployment rate? Toss out a name and %... just for kicks...

Under Democrat dict...er, presidents, 5.6% unemployment rate was universally heralded as fantastic. Now that a Republican is president, the media treats a lower unemployment rate as pathetic.

Alan, is it just my imagination that liberals/Dem's are so utterly CLUELESS? Is it also just my imagination that they can get on blogs and still ony repeatedly barf the LMSM and academia BS?

Is it also just my imagination that the liberal/Dems constantly regale us with how intellegent, enlightened and well informed thay are and what a bunhc of illiterate rednecks their opponents are?

I make no strong value statement about the content of the following, but here is some actual data from that ultra-liberal rag "Forbes" for you all to chew on. There are no knock-out punches here for either side, but perhaps a small dose of reality. I will say that I was suprised to see who ranks #1 in terms of job creation:

Presidents And Prosperity: The Underlying Data

"I also fail to see how big an impact one month's numbers will have on the annual adjustment."

The annual revision applies to the 12-month period ending in March 2004. The more you know...

Un-named:

Those Forbes figures were quite a shock!

It looks like Bush II will rank behind even Carter and Ford on the economy on the Forbes list criteria, if he has one term.

If only we could return to the halcyon days of Jimmy Carter, when, according to John Kerry's misery index, the American people were as happy as clams...

It looks like Bush II will rank behind even Carter and Ford on the economy on the Forbes list criteria, if he has one term.

Um how do you figure? Unemployment is at 5.4% at the end of Bush's first term as opposed to 8.3% at the end of Carter's.

I'd like to see a graph of Mortgage rates too, I remember it being close to 20% during Carter's term. Oooh, and lets see a graph of gas prices adjusted for inflation. Oh and speaking of inflation, when was the last time we worried about that, oh that's right, under Carter.

Of course if I listened to dems I'd still be worried about my grandchildren having to pay of Reagan's deficits like Mondale and company promised...then Clinton waved his magic stick and we had a surplus (and I didn't have any grandkids yet to chip in), of course that was probably paid for with American lives thanks to slashes in intelligence and military spending, so now I'm back to my great-grandchildren paying off W's deficits.

Not to besmirch the economy under Clinton, he did a good job of staying the hell out of the way, but if anybody thinks a Kerry economic policy will look anything like Clinton's you're only fooling yourself. Given the chance the great vacilator will give us real misery to index.

Paul B. I think you might be missing some subtletness on the part of Cedarford - he is perhaps implying that the 'magic' will happen in Bush's second term, if he is afforded one.

Anyway... look at the averages Carter Bashers, he ranks above Eisenhower and Bush the 1st and pretty much ties with Nixon and Truman (the only dem many republicans claim to have voted for...).

Actually, if I'm reading this right, supposedly Carter's job growth even topped Clinton?

Bill's likely to get uppity if you suggest his legacy is worse than Peanut's.

There are millions of people who believe that the government has completely fallen to pieces under Bush. The military, national parks, intelligence, education, NIH, and so forth.

Yet the numbers from the bureau of labor are the absolute gospel truth. The dozen of so people who produce those final numbers are the last few honest accurate people in the government.

The model that they are use was probably pretty close in 1950's or 1960's, but with so many self employed people and all the growth in small businesses these employment numbers are no as longer relevant as before.