The Recovery Is Not Yet Well-Established

Calculated Risk:

Calculated Risk: September Employment Report Preview: 1) The consensus is for a headline payroll number of zero (no net payroll jobs added or lost) and for the unemployment rate to increase to 9.7% in September from 9.6% in August.

Goldman Sachs is forecasting a minus 50,000 headline payroll number and an increase in the unemployment rate to 9.7%.

2) My estimate is the decennial Census workforce was reduced by 78,000 in August. This suggests a consensus headline payroll number of +78,000 ex-Census...

It would have been nice if Barack Obama had, a year ago, launched a major effort to rebuild America's infrastructure on the grounds that it would be criminal not to take advantage of the extraordinarily low interest rates at which the United States government could borrow...