Last Pre-Election Jobs Report Released

September's jobs report notes a gain of 96,000 jobs, and a downward revision for August from 144,000 to 128,000. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.4% (about even to Nixon's and Clinton's when they were reelected), while another 236,000 jobs were added in a periodic revision to the total, leaving Bush at a deficit of 585,000 jobs from where he started. If he averages 150,000 jobs for the last four months of his term, he will net positive job growth. The effects of the recent hurricanes were not possible to determine at this point, the report said. This will surely be featured prominently in tonight's second Presidential debate (starting at 9 p.m. Eastern).

Comments

Re:on the morning news radio broadcast...

[Edax Rarem]

No they didn't...
From the D.C. Post
"Many economists thought that the onslaught of successive hurricanes over the past month might seriously skew the results for September, but the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, which issues the jobs reports, found otherwise.

"At the national level," the BLS said, "the severe weather appears to have held down employment growth, but not enough to change materially the Bureau's assessment of the employment situation in September." "