MORE EMPLOYMENT NEWS….New blogger Smithers points out that although the 21,000 jobs created in February may seem plenty meager already, it’s actually even worse than that: they were all government jobs.
Yep, private sector job growth was exactly zero while government employment rose by 21,000. Probably not what all those Bush supporters had in mind when they pulled the lever for the GOP in 2000.
Oh, and remember the Household Employment Survey, the one that conservatives have all been claiming we should pay more attention to? (Not for any special reason, mind you ? although they’ve invented a thousand and one ingenious theories to explain why we should ? but simply because it shows a rosier job picture.) Well, according to the Household Survey we didn’t even gain 21,000 jobs. Instead we lost 265,000. What’s more, 588,000 more people dropped out of the labor force completely. Something tells me we’re not going to be hearing much about the Household Survey for a while.
But on the good news front, average wages increased three cents in February. America is turning the corner, folks!
