Crossposted from The People's View.
Today, the jobs report came out for September. It's bleak, showing a net loss of 95,000 jobs, despite a gain of 64,000 private sector jobs (marking the ninth straight month of private sector job growth), government layoffs. The numbers bode poorly for the American economy, and the lives of countless people, without a doubt. How did this happen? Austan Goolsbee, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, explains:
Despite the rise in private sector employment, overall payroll employment fell by 95,000 last month. In addition to the anticipated layoffs of 77,000 temporary Census jobs, state and local government also experienced a drop in employment of 83,000. ... The sector with the largest decline was local government, where payrolls declined by 76,000.
The GOP has of course been lambasting the 95,000 net loss without noting that the loss of 159,000 government jobs dwarfed the private sector job creation number of 64,000. I could have sworn I heard somewhere that Republicans don't believe government jobs are real.
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