#Hurricanes #Mar #Bidens #Economic #Legacy
Key takeaways
- The economy has added new jobs every month Joe Biden has been president, making him the first president in history to preside over a sustained period of job creation.
- The economy added just 12,000 jobs in October, a significant slowdown due to Hurricanes Helen and Milton.
- The small size of the job gains makes them vulnerable to turning negative if the BLS revises the number downward in any of three scheduled revisions to the preliminary numbers.
- Although a negative number would not necessarily indicate real weakness in the economy, President Biden has pointed to his record on job creation as evidence of the success of his economic policies.
The effects of Hurricanes Milton and Helen may break the series of gains achieved by the US economy in job creation, which would spoil what would otherwise be considered a historic achievement for President Joe Biden.
The U.S. economy has added jobs every month Biden has been in office, and if that streak continues into January, Biden will be the first president to never preside over more than a month in which the economy lost jobs. However, the economy added only 12,000 jobs in October due to the impact of Hurricanes Helen and Milton. If the Bureau of Labor Statistics revises that number downward in the coming months, it could easily result in a negative number, breaking Biden’s streak.
Biden pointed to his administration’s record on job growth as evidence of the success of his economic policies and those of Democratic presidents in general, who have historically outperformed their Republican counterparts when it comes to job creation during their terms.
The jobs slowdown in October does not indicate any real weakness in the economy, because it is only a temporary effect of the hurricanes, but a negative number would take away a talking point for Democrats when assessing the legacy of the Biden administration.
What do jobs report reviews look like?
The office regularly reviews its monthly employment figures to incorporate data it did not have when submitting the initial report. Each monthly jobs report is reviewed twice over a two-month period and again at the end of the year when the office combines data from unemployment insurance tax records.
However, the outlook for the October revisions is clouded by the impact of hurricanes, which disrupted the labor market and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data collection efforts. The office said in a press release that fewer people than usual responded in October to the surveys used to prepare the jobs report.
When all is said and done, an upward revision is more likely than a downward revision, said Corey Stahl, an economist at the job search website Career Lab, in an interview with Investopedia.
“There were people who didn’t get their surveys because they were dealing with evacuations and storms,” Stahley said. “Historically, reviews resulting from storm activity are almost always positive.”
However, it won’t take much to turn October’s positive number into negative. Downward revisions to previous reports are common and are usually more than 12,000 when they occur. For example, on Friday, the bureau revised job creation numbers for September and August down by 112,000 jobs.
#Hurricanes #Mar #Bidens #Economic #Legacy
