New numbers on jobs and defict | Michael Tomasky

DATELINE, WASHINGTON -- The private sector added 64,00 jobs in September, the eighth consecutive month of gains, signaling that though still tepid, the economy is in fact in recovery...

Well, something tells me that ain't the headline and lede (that's how we spell it, at least in US journalism, I guess so as not to confuse it with the metal) you're going to be seeing and hearing today and tomorrow.

This is how the AP is actually touting things, which actually seems pretty even-handed to me:

WASHINGTON (AP, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER) -- A wave of government layoffs in September outpaced weak hiring in the private sector, pushing down the nation's payrolls by a net total of 95,000 jobs.

The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent last month. The jobless rate has now topped 9.5 percent for 14 straight months, the longest stretch since the 1930s.

The private sector added 64,000 jobs, the weakest showing since June.

Local governments cut 76,000 jobs last month, most of them in education. That's the largest cut by local governments in 28 years. And, 77,000 temporary census jobs ended in September.

State and local governments are cutting jobs, of course, because the Senate didn't act to pass the funding to prevent it. The Republicans blocked it. Gee...you don't suppose they blocked it knowing that doing so would lead to a lousy jobs report, in which the public-sector firing would more than offset the private-sector hiring, thereby leading to a raft of negative stories for the Obama administration, do you? You're so cynical!

Meanwhile, another report came out yesterday that will get far less attention. It seems that the deficit was, according to the CBO, reduced in fiscal year 2010 by $125 billion since the previous year. That's a single-year record. Receipts were $57 billion higher than previously, and outlays $67 billion lower.

Of course the deficit is still very high. Close to $1.3 trillion, and 8.9% of GDP. Here's a chart giving some history on that.

Substantively, this is probably the worst of all possible worlds, because I'd rather see more government spending to get us out of this crisis, but that proved impossible, so instead we have this mish-mash situation in which spending isn't high enough to spur recovery and slashing isn't low enough to satisfy the deficit hawks. I just point it out because if the R's were in the White House, "record deficit reduction" would be a major talking point, while I can guarantee you that you won't hear one Democrat use that phrase.

US politicsUS economyMichael Tomasky
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