Is Job Growth for Real?

So, I was reading this article in the NY Times about the surprise finding that job growth in June seriously underperformed expectations.

Many economists were quick to call the report an aberration and to predict that healthy job growth would resume this summer.

The big buzz lately has been that job growth has finally been taking off and thus Bush's electoral chances should be improving correspondingly.

I thought I would pay a quick visit to the Bureau of Labor Service's cool little unemplyoment servlet to see whether this common wisdom is even quite so wise as it lets on.

June isn't yet available, but this look at the 12-month employment picture for May of 2004 indicates that nationwide unemployment had indeed declined slightly across the nation. So, over the year, employment ticked upwards. The only states with higher unemployment in May 2004 than in May 2003 were Alabama and Rhode Island. But what about the month-to-month trend? What are the patterns there?

From month to month, it's not nearly so rosy. The 1-month employment picture shows that, though the national economy was adding jobs, there were some clear patterns to it. Employment grew in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, the desert southwest, and New York, New Jersey. However, it remained constant in some critical states - notably West Virginia and Virginia (where, surprisingly, several polls have recently indicated very weak support for Bush).

Meanwhile, the employment picture was actually worsening along the shores of the Mississippi and the upper Midwest (not to mention the Deep South, where unemployment doesn't seem to have much political impact). Missouri, a crtiical swing state, had a one-month unemployment uptick of 0.4%. Wisconsin, one of the few swing states from 2000 that looks within reach for Bush had an uptick of 0.5%. Both states saw their unemployment rates pass the 5% threshold in May, during a period of surging growth. Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa, and Michigan also registered increases in unemployment.

Now that the unemployment picture is darkening again, it remains to be seen whether rising unemplyoment in these states starts to drain his support. Though the overall economic picture has steadily improved in the last year, Bush is banking on perceptions, not realities.