Welcome to the Jobless Recovery
Employers eliminated 216,000 jobs in August even as the larger economy showed signs of turning around, suggesting that while the pace of job losses continues to slow, American workers will still be among the last to benefit from a recovery.
It’s important to keep this in mind as we consider the president’s falling poll numbers. Public views of presidential performance are strongly tied to the state of the economy. It’s likely that if the economy were doing better people would like Obama more, therefore they would like what he says about health care more, therefore senators would be more inclined to say nice things about Obama’s health care proposals, therefore the press would be full of stories about the brilliance of Obama’s approach to health reform. Ten percent unemployment and falling wages makes everyone’s legislative strategy look dumb.
Your sobering thought of the day is that the unemployment rate will very plausibly continue to edge up for six more months, so if you thought the “long hot summer of crazy” was fun, just look forward to how nutty things get during the looming “winter of discontent.” We’ll probably never know if a different strategy could have gotten the administration a bigger and/or better stimulus bill, but I think the failure to deliver one of adequate size will prove to have hobbled the first couple years of the administration in crucial ways.
56 Responses to “Welcome to the Jobless Recovery”
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September 4th, 2009 at 10:53 am
well, getting another stimulus through congress doesn’t look very likely (i still favor a state sales tax holiday funded by the federal budget, which would be very pro-consumption), but i’m also willing to bet that in november, 2010, U-6 will be better than it is today.
September 4th, 2009 at 10:53 am
failure to deliver one of adequate size will prove to have hobbled the first couple years of the administration in crucial ways.
Republicans say: Mission accomplished! You think they cared about deficits or whether their “stimulus” ideas would work better than Obama’s? All they cared about was 1) Not giving him a legislative victory, and 2) Destroying the benefits of any legislation that did pass so that situation would remain crappy through midterms.
September 4th, 2009 at 10:55 am
This was depressing. No more depressing posts, or I’m going to spend my multitasking minutes watching Metric videos instead.
September 4th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Yes, but think long term here. What will the economy look like in 2010? Will the Republicans have tied the knot on their own noose?
September 4th, 2009 at 10:57 am
As I have noted many times before, it remains to be seen how people will react to the likely upcoming period in which the general economy is widely acknowledged to be in recovery but the unemployment rate is still very high, which could in fact include a period where jobs are increasing, but not yet fast enough to reduce unemployment.
Anyway, the Administration is starting to make its case on how the stimulus has helped. Conversely, even a bigger stimulus likely would also only have helped, as opposed to completely changing the shape of the recession and recovery. So while I think it is true a bigger stimulus would have been a good idea, I’m not sure the political ramifications are as straightforward as Matt suggests.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:01 am
We’ll probably never know if a different strategy could have gotten the administration a bigger and/or better stimulus bill, but I think the failure to deliver one of adequate size will prove to have hobbled the first couple years of the administration in crucial ways.
I would have preferred a larger and faster-acting stimulus plan myself, but that would have meant railroading a Democratic bill through Congress, and that in turn means the right wing fury we saw in full force by this summer would have been on full display way back in February. And that, in turn, might have meant healthcare reform was dead on arrival, because by now Republican charges that Obama is a dictator would have been found credible by a lot of Americans. As it stands now, complaints and charges (and even concern trolling) about the hyperpartisan nature of the BHO administration aren’t particularly credible, because the White House has clearly gone out of its way to bring everybody to the table on important matters. And that — their reputation for reasonableness — will in turn be one of the keys to getting a health care bill to the president’s desk. The Dems can hold their caucus together when the presidents numbers are weakened, but a still non-disastrous 50% or so. But had the new administration and Congress decided to ride roughshod over the opposition from he getgo, Obama’s approval numbers right now would be much weaker.
And anyway, having the full impact of the stimulus plan peak a little bit closer to November of 2012 might not be such a bad problem in the scheme of things. Better to lose a few house seats in 2010 than the White House in 2012.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Yes, but think long term here. What will the economy look like in 2010? Will the Republicans have tied the knot on their own noose?
I think 2010 remains on the fence, and again I think it really depends on how people react to the period of split economic news we are likely entering.
But 2012 and beyond . . . that is a whole different story. It remains to be seen, but so far the consensus forecasts don’t seem too far off track, and if that continues that would likely be very bad news for the GOP in 2012 and probably well beyond.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Anyway, the Administration is starting to make its case on how the stimulus has helped…So while I think it is true a bigger stimulus would have been a good idea, I’m not sure the political ramifications are as straightforward as Matt suggests.
Plus, isn’t employment supposed to be a lagging indicator? You would need a particularly massive stimulus to bring down unemployment immediately. This is something that will just need more time. Focusing on current poll numbers is the wrong approach to making long term policy decisions.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:10 am
People are going to get goat fucked in the worst way. If they ever get their jobs back they’ll be McJobs with shit wages and nonexistent benefits. And they’ll still be trapped in houses they can’t sell and are worth less than the mortgage they’re paying. Meanwhile, health care and education costs will soar, and their bosses at work will be even bigger a**holes.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:10 am
As I have noted many times before, it remains to be seen how people will react to the likely upcoming period in which the general economy is widely acknowledged to be in recovery but the unemployment rate is still very high…
Right. I read somewhere — don’t remember where and don’t know if it’s true but it sounds plausible — that, to the extent that voters base their decision on the economy, they tend to do so based what they perceive the economy’s near future prospects to be. In other words, are things headed in the right direction? Were the midterms held right now, no doubt most voters would be pessimistic. But the economic news is clearly more hopeful than it was a few months ago, never mind last fall when the entire system itself teetered on the brink of collapse. So it’s entirely possible people will be in a much better mood fourteen months from now, even amidst a lot of joblessness.
I’m predicting a garden variety bloody nose for the incumbent Democrats in the midterms, but nothing to panic about (though that won’t keep the Broderhood from proclaiming the end of liberalism when they Republicans take back, say, twelve House and three Senate seats).
September 4th, 2009 at 11:12 am
So far the rsponse to the downturn has been far short of adequate.
We have a structural problem that hasn’t even been talked about, let alone addressed. The stagnant wages of recent years is a serious problem and will only get worse.
The oligarchy is gonna discover that you can’t get blood from a turnip and you can’t leverage off a public that has no money.
Maybe when they discover that current policies hurt them too they will line up behind real corrections.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:12 am
DFHs say: told ya so.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:16 am
It calms me considerably to remember that FDR had to deal with the crazies too, at first. Once things got better economically, he basically got to be President for life, and the Republicans were essentially banished from power in the House for an age.
I’m one of those who thinks that the Republican strategy of anti-everything will make them vulnerable in the long term. It’s a lot like McCain’s presidential campaign: constantly chasing the news cycle and whipping people into anger-fueled frenzies. In the end, those crazy angry people are a tiny minority, even if the news reports it as if there are only three or four sane people left in the country.
When sane people see insane people, they can recognize it pretty readily, and I think over the long haul, it will turn most Republicans into some version (give or take a few IQ points)of Sarah Palin.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:20 am
No stimulus, however big, Republican or Democratic, is going to ‘work’. If by ‘work’ you mean mean bring back the days of the bustling world economy that was premised on cheap energy. Late-capitalist America has been consuming natural resources like a drunken sailor for the better part of a century, and now is the time to pay the piper.
Simply put, the recession of 2008-2009 is merely the incipient stage in a global economic collapse that will make the Great Depression look like a tea party.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Was “size” really the issue? Or was it design? There are still huge pieces of the stimulus money that have not been spent. For all sorts of reasons. Increasing the bill by, say, 50 percent would not necessarily have meant any more spending in recent months. It seems, after all, that there were real impediments to “speed.” As such, it seems that we could have had more up-front spending without more overall spending.
That’s not to say that more spending wouldn’t be better. But I am not sure a bigger bill would necessarily change the way things stand right now, economically or politically.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Simply put, the recession of 2008-2009 is merely the incipient stage in a global economic collapse that will make the Great Depression look like a tea party.
Why does that thought make you so happy?
September 4th, 2009 at 11:27 am
From here on the ground – out of my three friends who got laid off – as of Tuesday all three will be back to work. From my little corner of the world – the recession is over.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I’m more on the design versus the size issue. If you had simply created a jobs bill, rather than a generic stimulus, $787 billion would have been enough to create about 20 million jobs in one year, or 10 million jobs each year for two years (it costs about $40 billion to create 1 million jobs directly).
The problem was that the stimulus didn’t have enough employment-directed parts to it – the moderates stripped out the teacher funding provisions, aid to the states wasn’t high enough to completely make up for the $200 billion collective shortfall of the states, and the public works provisions were crippled by an over-attention to “shovel-readiness” versus “people-readiness.”
September 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am
We’ll probably never know if a different strategy could have gotten the administration a bigger and/or better stimulus bill
Yeah, it quite a shame that the Democrats insisted on a so-called “stimulus” bill that provided hardly any stimulus so far. Instead, the Democrats insisted on a bill that spends a quarter of the so-called “stimulus” in 2011 and beyond.
Let’s face it, the Democrats insisted on a long-term pork-fest almost completely unrelated stimulus. And now they are paying for it.
If the Democrats had taken the Republicans’ advice and passed a bill that was based on tax cuts that were much faster acting (even if they thought they had a lower overall multiple), we’d be in better shape right now. Moreover, it would have been much easier for the Democrats to claim that the Republican way isn’t working, so we need another stimulus focused on Democrat priorities. But that isn’t what happened.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:41 am
You would need a particularly massive stimulus to bring down unemployment immediately. This is something that will just need more time.
Exactly. A bigger stimulus, but still one within the realm of plausibility, would likely have reduced the unemployment rate at peak somewhat more than the actual stimulus. Which would have been a good thing, but it wouldn’t have somehow prevented us from going through this upcoming period where the economy is recovering but the unemployment rate still increases for a while, and then plateaus, and then finally comes down. And I’m just not sure how much politically turns on the unemployment rate peaking at 10.3% instead of 9.8%, or whatever we would be talking about.
I read somewhere — don’t remember where and don’t know if it’s true but it sounds plausible — that, to the extent that voters base their decision on the economy, they tend to do so based what they perceive the economy’s near future prospects to be.
That is my understanding as well. For example, I believe the best correlation with job approval rates is found with things like “Economy: getting better/getting worse?” polls. And right now although “getting better” has closed a lot of the gap with “getting worse”, it is struggling to actually cross over. And we probably won’t see any sort of turnaround in Obama’s/the Democrats’ job approval trends until it does cross over.
But that could conceivably happen by next November, maybe in enough time to make a difference. We’ll just have to see.
As such, it seems that we could have had more up-front spending without more overall spending.
But not to beneficial effect. The fastest parts of the stimulus were the transfer parts, and we saw what happened to them: they increased personal disposable income (as designed), but then people simply saved the vast bulk of that additional income (as feared). So shifting even more spending into these tracks would very likely have reduced the overall efficacy of the stimulus, meaning we would likely have ended up with a higher peak unemployment rate.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:42 am
As “inadequate” as the stimulus is, at least in creating an immediate turnaround, most people think it’s still a ton of money. That, as much as anything, has seriously eroded support for any part of Obama’s domestic agenda that costs money. I can’t believe a bigger stimulus would have added to Obama’s political capital. Maybe the economy would be doing better, but the
September 4th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Jasper: “I would have preferred a larger and faster-acting stimulus plan myself, but that would have meant railroading a Democratic bill through Congress, and that in turn means the right wing fury we saw in full force by this summer would have been on full display way back in February. And that, in turn, might have meant healthcare reform was dead on arrival, because by now Republican charges that Obama is a dictator would have been found credible by a lot of Americans.”
Nonsense. Most of the American people don’t give a rat’s ass about “bipartisanship” per se. That is an elite obsession. The American people want results. If the results are good, they won’t much care whether they were achieved by bipartisan compromise or by steamrolling the opposition. Most Americans don’t even know about arcane Senate rules, and would probably not be particularly supportive of them if they did.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Why does that thought make you so happy?
Hector is a sadist, so he really, really enjoys the thought of a lot of people suffering. Oh, and it is good for the soul, or something like that. But for Hector, the crucial part is the thrill he gets from contemplating other people in pain.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Recovery should be measured in terms of jobs, not GDP. GDP can (and has) increase due to asset inflation, which can disappear tomorrow.
A muscular jobs program is vital to meaningful recovery.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Yeah, it quite a shame that the Democrats insisted on a so-called “stimulus” bill that provided hardly any stimulus so far. . . . If the Democrats had taken the Republicans’ advice and passed a bill that was based on tax cuts that were much faster acting (even if they thought they had a lower overall multiple), we’d be in better shape right now.
Again, the faster forms of stimulus have proven just as ineffective as we feared. So shifting more to tax cuts would have provided very little additional gain right now, and a lot less gain going forward.
Instead, the Democrats insisted on a bill that spends a quarter of the so-called “stimulus” in 2011 and beyond.
We’re going to need that stimulus spending next year (FY2010) and the year after (FY2011), and probably the year after that (FY2012). I’m not sure about FY2013 and beyond, but there isn’t much spending that far out anyway.
Moreover, it would have been much easier for the Democrats to claim that the Republican way isn’t working, so we need another stimulus focused on Democrat priorities.
Trashing the country for political gain may be a favorite Republican tactic, but it isn’t the Democrats’ way.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Re: Why does that thought make you so happy?
Because I want to see the collapse of a system that has deformed and mutilated human nature and poisoned our relationships with each other, with nature, and with God. The system that we have created in America is a decadent one based on the denial of our duties to each other and to the common good, based on the elevation of leisure over labor, the self over the community, moneylending over productive work, exploitation over self-sacrifice, self-interest over love, and the artificial over the natural. I think we would all be better off if, out of the coming economic and environmental apocalypse, a new order emerges based on deeply spiritual agrarian cooperatives, and inspired by the constant struggle between good and evil.
America will meet the same fate as Rome and Babylon before it, and we will all be better off for it. It is likely that Mr. Yglesias’ grandchildren, instead of spending their time twittering about Foucault, pork chops and the NBA, will spend their time digging sweet potatoes out of the ground and being thankful they have enough sweet potatoes to eat. And their life, though much harder than that of Mr. Yglesias, will be deeper and more spiritually meaningful.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
DTM,
Re: Hector.
I’ll give this recession credit for one thing: I never thought I’d see the left wing, moonbat, environmentalists so closely aligned with the right wing, christianist, Dave Ramsey republican, neo-melloites.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Hector,
So, long story short, you are a low status male with no car and no girlfriend?
September 4th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Nonsense. Most of the American people don’t give a rat’s ass about “bipartisanship” per se. That is an elite obsession.
Josh G: It’s not nonsense. And it’s not quite an elite obsession as such (it’s an elite “centrist” obsession; elites liberals and conservatives are understandably quite fond of partisanship).
Most liberal elites quite rightly want the Democrats to dispense with efforts to foster bipartisanship, as soon as this is practicable. My point is, this wasn’t practicable back in January and February, as we had many months to go before crunch time on health care arrived.
It’s true that many (not sure about most) Americans don’t care about bipartisanship as such; but rightly or wrongly many Americans do take their cues about what is respectable to believe or support or oppose from elite opinion makers. Going in with partisan guns ablazin’ from the getgo last winter would have had sent all the nice, “reasonable” pundits reaching for the smelling salts, and complaining about the radicalism of the new administration. And by now healthcare would be as dead as it got in 1994.
Of course, then again, what do Obama, Axelrod and Emanuel know about politics? Maybe you’re right.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Anyway, the Administration is starting to make its case on how the stimulus has helped. Conversely, even a bigger stimulus likely would also only have helped, as opposed to completely changing the shape of the recession and recovery. So while I think it is true a bigger stimulus would have been a good idea, I’m not sure the political ramifications are as straightforward as Matt suggests.
===========================================================
You bet they’re making the case. Heck of a job, Joe!
Here’s AP/MSNBC take on “making its case”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32678317/ns/politics/
Biden ignores problems with stimulus
Money slow to trickle out and some spending priorities are questionable
WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed success beyond expectations Thursday for the $787 billion economic stimulus, but his glowing assessment overlooks many of the program’s problems, including delays in releasing money, questionable spending priorities and project picks that are under investigation.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I think it is worth noting that what most Americans care about is largely irrelevant to the political calculations members of Congress must make. Indeed, even what most voters in their district or state care about is not particularly relevant–or rather, they know that most people care so much about partisanship that they are locked in one way or another no matter what happens.
So, what matters is mostly just what the marginal voters (meaning voters gettable by candidates of either party) in their district or state care about. And marginal voters are generally an odd bunch, and among other things a good number of them are in fact influenced by non-results-oriented factors. Of course on some level it is crazy that these people have so much influence on the course of events, but that is the nature of our political system.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Here’s AP/MSNBC take . . .
Yes, we all know about the AP’s “take” on things these days. And to be sure, the stimulus is not a perfect program, so they will continue to have lots of fodder for their “take”.
But the thing is, none of what they cite actually undermines the point that the stimulus is having a positive economic effect, an effect that will likely grow over time. So, this is another classic case of certain parties thinking they are “winning” just because entities like the AP are willing to publish their “take”, and meanwhile the real world is moving on without them.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
This can’t be true!
Saint Obama, in order to get his PorkFest passed,
promised us that he’d keep unemployment at 8% and he
doesn’t lie for short term political gain does he?
At what point do you credit Americans with realizing
what a lying scumbag we have in the White House?
The Republicans are simply taking aim at the target
Obama himself erected.
To misquote his “friend, mentor, and counselor” the
ObaChickens are coming home to roost.
September 4th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
[...] the unemployment rate up to 9.7 percent — adds more evidence to the notion that we are headed towards a jobless recovery. While the full force of the recession seems to be behind us, getting back to where we were in [...]
September 4th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
But… DTM and MattY said TARP fixed everything. How can this be true?
September 4th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
DTM Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Here’s AP/MSNBC take . . .
Yes, we all know about the AP’s “take” on things these days. And to be sure, the stimulus is not a perfect program, so they will continue to have lots of fodder for their “take”.
But the thing is, none of what they cite actually undermines the point that the stimulus is having a positive economic effect, an effect that will likely grow over time. So, this is another classic case of certain parties thinking they are “winning” just because entities like the AP are willing to publish their “take”, and meanwhile the real world is moving on without them.
=========================================================
Well, the real world is certainly moving on without the Democrats on this issue
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8344083&page=1
Poll: 57% Don’t See Stimulus Working
Six Months After Obama Launched Stimulus, Majority of Americans Think It’s Done Little to End Recession
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 57% of adults say the stimulus package is having no impact on the economy or making it worse. Even more —60% — doubt that the stimulus plan will help the economy in the years ahead, and only 18% say it has done anything to help improve their personal situation.
September 4th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Re: I’ll give this recession credit for one thing: I never thought I’d see the left wing, moonbat, environmentalists so closely aligned with the right wing, christianist, Dave Ramsey republican, neo-melloites.
JMO,
I’m not a Republican, I don’t vote for Republicans, and I have no idea who your Dave Ramsey is.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Again, the faster forms of stimulus have proven just as ineffective as we feared.
Since we haven’t tried the faster forms of stimulus that Republicans advocated, your counterfactual is pure speculation.
We do know, in fact, that the Bush stimulus – tax cuts in 2008 – contributed to a 2Q2008 that actually had GDP growth – even in the middle of a recession. Tax cuts are not only effective forms of stimulus, but can be implemented extremely quickly. But Obama and the Democrats didn’t care enough about the recession to want to implement fast-acting stimulus – they wanted their pork-laden spending even if is extremely slow to provide any stimulus.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Let’s recall again 2008. Bush signs tax cut stimulus package in February. GDP growth occurs almost immediately – it improved by the second quarter, or within a few months, due to the Bush stimulus. Alas, the stimulus then was too small to prevent a recession, and the banking crisis hit in Q3. But imagine if the Democrats had passed a similar tax cut-based stimulus in February 2009. Like in 2008, it could have been implemented extremely quickly, and made a good deal of difference so far. But Democrats simply didn’t care enough about fixing the recession to put aside their ideological addiction to spending, even though we know that spending only occurs very, very slowly.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Hector,
You’re the leftwing environmentalist moonbat.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
DTM . . . said TARP fixed everything.
Um, no. And if you have to lie like that to make a point, it doesn’t say much for the point you are trying to make.
Well, the real world is certainly moving on without the Democrats on this issue
Campesino’s cherry-picking aside, many polls show that a plurality already believe the stimulus is helping or will help, and this number will undoubtedly grow as the stimulus continues to ramp up and the economy in general improves.
Since we haven’t tried the faster forms of stimulus that Republicans advocated, your counterfactual is pure speculation. . . . Tax cuts are not only effective forms of stimulus, but can be implemented extremely quickly.
Your ignorance amuses me. The stimulus package included many stimulus measures specifically supported by Republicans, and it certainly included tax cuts–$288 billion total of tax cuts, in fact, which was 37% of the total package. The problem is that those cash transfers just largely disappeared into higher savings rates, as feared and expected.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I think we would all be better off if, out of the coming economic and environmental apocalypse, a new order emerges based on deeply spiritual agrarian cooperativesl.
So, you’ve basically cribbed your political ideology from Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge circa 1976?
God you’re an evil fuck – how do you sleep at night?
September 4th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
we will all be better off for it. It is likely that Mr. Yglesias’ grandchildren, instead of spending their time twittering about Foucault, pork chops and the NBA, will spend their time digging sweet potatoes out of the ground and being thankful they have enough sweet potatoes to eat.
The anti-intellectualism also seems to fit nicely into your neo-polpotist/year zero ideology.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Well, the real world is certainly moving on without the Democrats on this issue
Campesino’s cherry-picking aside, many polls show that a plurality already believe the stimulus is helping or will help, and this number will undoubtedly grow as the stimulus continues to ramp up and the economy in general improves.
======================================================
You really should read the stuff you link to. Every poll in there shows approval of Obama’s handling of the economy falling throught the floor
September 4th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
The Khmer Rouge subjected Cambodia to a radical social reform process that was aimed at creating a purely agrarian-based Communist society. The city-dwellers were deported to the countryside, where they were combined with the local population and subjected to forced labor. About 1.5 million Cambodians are estimated to have died in waves of murder, torture, and starvation, aimed particularly at the educated and intellectual elite.
Hector, are you actually some Khmer Rouge dead ender coming to us from your hut in the Cambodia jungle?
September 4th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Hector, get thee to a nunnery!
September 4th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Re: if you thought the “long hot summer of crazy” was fun, just look forward to how nutty things get during the looming “winter of discontent.”
Before concluding that the Circus of August will last indefinitely, do consider that possibility that other stuff may happen that will crowd out of the wingnuts’ media time. They’ve been so prominent lately because nothing else is happening. But once real news starts being made they’ll be back in the court jester’s role again.
September 4th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
it’s nice to see that al is still right up there with the campesinos of the world.
we had an empirical test of tax-cutting uber alles as a job-creation measure in 2003. it failed, pure and simple, didn’t come close to the job creation that bush promised would result from tax-cutting.
notice that al is playing a little game here: he’s talking about gdp growth wrt to the little bush stimulus, not job growth. because, of course, he can’t talk about job growth.
as for gdp growth, odds are it’s going to look perfectly fine in Q3 and Q4 as further stimulus kicks in, which is a feature and not a bug.
and as gdp growth emerges, the nature of the approval ratings and all the rest will evolve too. as i said way back in the first comment on this thread, i believe that U6 will be lower in november, 2010 than it is today. that’s going to read as a positive….
September 4th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Hector,
So, long story short, you are a low status male with no car and no girlfriend?
Hector is perhaps too modest to point out that he’s a Harvard grad with a natural sciences degree, if I recall correctly. I like cities, personally, having been raised in the same one as Matt (same city, different universe), but am often disappointed by the extent to which progressives accept as a given and even a net positive the corporatism and over-consumption characterized by the past many years. I think the evidence tells a different story about how good these things have been for us and for the planet. But, then, I hate Foucault, the NBA, and pork chops with a passion, so your mileage may vary.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
You really should read the stuff you link to. Every poll in there shows approval of Obama’s handling of the economy falling throught the floor
If by “falling through the floor” you mean “still averaging net approval”, OK. Incidentally, from the zero-sum category, Obama continues to dominate the Republicans on these issues. That is because people continue to overwhelmingly blame the Republicans for the current economic mess.
That said, as I explained above I expect Obama’s approval trends to be negative until more people start seeing the economy as getting better versus getting worse, and that obviously applies to his approval specifically on the economy. And I frankly don’t know exactly when that flipover point will be, although I think it is more likely than not to happen considerably before the 2010 election. I just don’t know if it will happen sufficiently far in advance to make a difference in the 2010 electoral outcome.
2012, though . . . well, I think the Republicans just need to pray as hard as they can for the 2012 election for some reason to not be about the economy.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
jmo,
I have also noted in the past that Hector is basically a Christianist Pol Pot. But I think that gets back to the sadism–if you get a thrill from contemplating other people in pain, what better choice than to contemplate the global adoption of Pol Pot’s policies?
September 4th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
By the way, my understanding is that there is some evidence of a genetic component to sadism. So Hector’s sadism may not be a product of his life experiences.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Sorry for the serial posts, but one mini-rant:
So Obama hits 50%/+7 in the Gallup job approval poll, and it is big news and a topic of conversation all over the place. Obama is now back to 55%/+17. Equally big news, right? Of course not.
Which is not to deny Obama has been in an overall downward trend. But the news certainly de facto cherry-picks polls, even if not for as transparently partisan purposes as Campesino.
September 5th, 2009 at 1:08 am
DTM, i don’t have time to give this in-depth research, but between a quick search and memory, i’ll go ahead and say that most recent presidents go through a low point not too far into their first term.
specifically, reagan’s all-time low in gallup was january, 1983; clinton’s all-time low was june, 1993; bush was sinking at the time of 9/11, with approval in the 40s; and now we’re seeing obama’s approval slip. i assume this is fundamentally a reflection of some kind of fantasy the american people have about the wonderfulness of their new president, but somehow both reagan and clinton managed to do just fine, thank you, come their next election.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx
September 5th, 2009 at 1:09 am
DTM, that’s what i get for going too fast: reagan’s first term, of course, began in 1981, and he very quickly got the big sympathy boost from the assassination attempt, so his low isn’t relevant, but clinton’s is (bush 43’s isn’t, of course, since his surge in popularity was post-9/11).
September 5th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
The question isn’t, what will the economy look like in November 2010. People’s opinions will have crystalized well before then.
On the other hand, I’m always hearing complaints that the stimulus money wasn’t rolled out quickly enough. Another way to look at this is that there will still be a lot of stimulus money being spent in the summer/autumn of 2010.