Election year politics and the job market.
Every month the media waits anxiously for the latest labor department economic report. This month's (measuring August hiring activity) is due on Friday and everyone from Presidential candidates to economics professors will look at the data and pronounce the health of the U.S. economy. But how accurate are the job numbers that will come out in 72 hours? It depends on whom you ask.
When the government polled households in July for its regular labor report, 629,000 people said they had just started work. But when the Labor Department asked companies how many people were added to payrolls in that month, the numbers revealed only 32,000. What are those other 597,000 people doing, selling burritos on the street? mowing lawns?
"I can't tell you," said Tom Nardone, head of the Labor Department's Division of Labor Force Statistics. "We just don't know why there is a difference between the surveys."
The most obvious reason for the disparity is that contract workers and those who own their own business often get missed by the count of new jobs created, even though they may be working and drawing an income. Beyond that, the guesses are purely a matter of politics, particularly in a presidential election year. Bush administration officials contend that the numbers of people reporting that they are working are the more accurate assessment of job creation and evidence that the economy is strong. Supporters of John Kerry, on the other hand, argue that the President's staff is "trying to muddy the waters" with misleading numbers. READ: Diverse definitions plague job reports
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