Employment news

Last month, I made this prediction: “If the employment numbers for September are extremely good – let’s say 250,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 5.3% - then President Bush will be re-elected.”

This just in: “Jobless Claims Decline Sharply Last Week”

However, conventional wisdom is predicting a job creation of around 150,000 for September with unemployment holding steady at 5.4%. Meanwhile, the Washington Times is more sanguine on the revised employment numbers for the year – “Bush likely to get good jobs news”:

The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its monthly employment report for September and will announce a preliminary revised estimate of the number of payroll jobs created in the March 2003 to March 2004 period. Administration forecasters say the estimate could add 288,000 to 400,000 jobs to Mr. Bush's record.

If the revisions are anywhere near these numbers, economists and political strategists say, it would strengthen Mr. Bush's assertions that job creation has improved on his watch and make Mr. Kerry's charges of a weak economy less compelling.

We’ll know soon enough.