By Jared Bernstein
In their second debate, Gov. Romney went hard after President Obama on the economic recovery, unleashing a fusillade of statistics as to how bad things were for average folks. Many of his stats were wrong or misleading -- he stated numerous times that 23 million people were "looking for work" or "struggling to find a job" when the actual number is 12 million (the larger number includes part-time workers who want full-time jobs); and his claim of half a million lost manufacturing jobs over the President's term neglected to distinguish the impact of the recession from the turnaround in factory jobs in 2010 (for the first time in over a decade, we've been adding manufacturing jobs, about 500,000 so far).
Whatever. The challenger always talks down the economy, and even with the recent improvements which I'll elaborate on further down, there are still far too many Americans struggling with a tough job market, stagnant earnings and stretched family budgets.
Yet compelling evidence is beginning to build showing that Mitt's assault on the "Obama economy" isn't resonating with voters as much as he'd like it to.
Housing is key here, as the sector finally seems to be on the mend:
- All three major home price indexes are showing consistent growth in prices, the first time that's happened since the bust.
- The collision of this home price appreciation and historically low mortgage rates is fueling a refinancing boom, saving an average of $2,200 from the typical family's annual mortgage debt payments. It's tough to refinance when you're underwater, but over a million formerly underwater homeowners have now broken the surface, and refi applications are actually up most in the states hardest hit by the housing crash (e.g., they're up 190 percent -- off a very low base -- in Nevada; they're up 140 percent in Florida).
- New home construction jumped 15 percent last month, posting its highest growth rate since 2008; the monthly data are volatile, but there are clear signs that the inventory overhang in housing is much diminished.
- This recovery has never had a solid housing market underneath it. To the contrary, housing -- typically a sector that helps us climb out of recessions -- has consistently subtracted from GDP growth. In the heart of the recession, it was drawing two to three percent off of growth. Now it's adding to growth -- not much, mind you…just a quarter to a half a percentage point. But at least it's finally pushing us up instead of pulling us down.
To be clear, this part of the economy is recovering, not recovered. Millions of foreclosures remain in the pipeline, though here, too, there's progress: foreclosure filings are at the lowest level since July 2007, according to RealtyTrac.
The second factor that's making it harder for Romney's "this recovery stinks" message to resonate is the job market itself. Here, you have to distinguish between levels and trends. The level of the unemployment rate, at 7.8 percent, is still too high. But it was 10 percent three years ago, so the trend is our friend.
In Ohio, to just pull a random state out of the air(!), the unemployment rate was 10.6 percent at the end of 2009, higher than the national average. Now, at 7 percent, it's lower (the auto's rescue is playing an important role in these numbers; national auto sales are on pace to top 15 million this year, the highest in four years). And it's the trend that influences people's feelings about the economy... momentum matters.
Same with job growth. In the second quarter of the year, we added about 70,000 jobs per month; in the third quarter, that pace more than doubled to 150,000.
No question, the economic bag is a mixed one. As noted, the still weak but healing job market is not generating real wage growth for most workers yet, and middle-class incomes remain well below where they were a few years ago. But to understand the economy at a point in time, you have to appreciate its dynamics -- not just where it is, but where it's headed.
And people seem to be getting that. Consumer confidence measures are posting new highs. Gallup's economic confidence tracker jumped up this month as well.
Track these numbers long enough and you learn how fickle they can be. Such indicators could turn before election day and signal that Romney's purely negative view of the recovery is more resonant than I believe it's been of late. Like I said, though the outlook has improved, there are still too many people struggling with a tough economy.
In other words, we're not out of the woods. But we're on the right path through the forest, and the improvement in home equity, auto sales, the pace of job growth and consumer sentiments suggest we may be moving down that path with a bit more pep in our step. The implication is that while Gov. Romney's attacks won't exactly fall on deaf ears, voters may not hear those words as clearly as he'd like them to.
Jared Bernstein served from 2009 to 2011 as chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, and as a member of President Obama's economic team. He is currently an MSNBC contributor.
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Why are we surprised, when you have NOTHING to offer - LIE and just make stuff up - it is the GOTP way. Who really cares about facts when you have sheeple that don't believe anything except what FAUX NOOZE tells them.
So explain to me how it's a lie when it's on charts that are prepared by outside agencies???
Um. They're referring to Fox News and Romney's false narrative, not the MaddowBlog.
I'm not sure what charts you're referring to... the charts and statistics that Fox uses?
I just gave you a star because you're my favorite muppet.
Go back to Stepford, Carlene. Your dishwasher's calling you.
I apologize for confusing you Carlene, I was speaking about Romney & the GOTP overall.
The narrative of this debate point is an example of why the status quo always wins.
The argument should not be about "how many jobs?" "how much unemployment?" etc...
but rather "who is going to benefit from the inevitable recovery?" Will the rich keep enjoying all of the wealth or will the middle class and impoverished achieve real earnings growth?
Most middle class occupations earn today roughly what they earned in the late 80's!
Ok, great, so by 2016 there will be 12 million more jobs, but the investor class like Mitt Romney will see his income increase significantly over that time while the people building his 6th or 7th house will settle for being happy just to have a job!!!
That's not progress, that's status quo!
Jared Bernstein is a gifted economist, but he ain't no William Jefferson Clinton when it comes to talkin' plain to the American Folks.
I wasn't half way thru the above before my eyes started to glaze over. Keep it Simple, Stupid.
Here's how Obama needs to deliver the message:
"A strong domestic economy is the best deterrent to threats from abroad. And we can get our economy growing again by spending our defense dollars on Infrastructure, Education, and Research. Because those dollars stay at home. Where they belong!"
But it's the gullible who believe the Romney/Ryan misinformation.
The only cure is to GET OUT AND VOTE!
DO IT EARLY, if your state allows it.
I'm proud of NC thanks to Gov Purdue's veto of voter ID, there is early voting from the 18th through Nov 3rd at designated one stop polling places. This week more places open up. This is what every state should do. By the way that includes weekends as well. Don't be fooled by the tale that Romney thinks he is losing so he has taken his team out of NC. It is a fake, only one person has left to go to Ohio. By saying they have pulled out they hope Dems will not turn out thinking Romney is far ahead. It is very close here but early voting shows Dems have the edge. Don't know if that will hold up or grow so NC Dems get out to vote.
GWB got us lost deep in the woods. POB has us in sight of salvation. The GOTP want to hire a white guide to get the credit.
mitt full of cow chips obama has kept arms interest rates down allowing us old timers to t down our equity loans and trucks payments every thing is lovely broke but almost out of debt,the mayans were right OBAMA 2012
The GOP tried almost exactly the same argument against FDR in 1936. They insisted that the economy wasn't recovering fast enough and that his public policy decisions were overreaching and to expensive and that America couldn't afford him. I would argue that after Seventy five years history has effectively proven them wrong.
As he said then: "My opponents will tell you they looove Social Security. They only object to this administration's handling of it. Give it to us, they say, and we'll be sure that everyone is taken care of and it won't cost anybody anything."
Nobody could deliver sarcasm like FDR.
i,m a combat veteran of the vietnam war 66-67 proud of my president ,okay so hes white and black my great grand was white and married my granny who was french /spanish./living in spanish colonial mejico in guadalajara jalisco,and me i was born in texas ,and part of the old texas ranching families ,thanks to our friends in texas they ownthe ranches and cattle we own our names and history ?
Let us not forget that this recovery while not perfect has been done in spite of the house who actively held America hostage in their attempt to make the POTUS a one term president. One has to ask.. how much further along would we be without the obstruction?
Romney is and always will be a liability, that our Country cannot afford.
You have to love how people like the Waltons in particular are going after Obama.
Walmart limits the number of fulltime workers so they can avoid paying benefits. Meanwhile, then they spend lots of money pushing the idea of the "real" unemployment rate, which counts part-time workers as unemployed. Basically, they blame Obama for their own hiring practices, and people actually buy into it.
"Hey look at all this cake. I think I'll eat it too!"
Goodnight Elizabeth.
You sound like just another Union Goon that never backs up your view with facts. Fact is that most WalMart workers are people who only want to work part time. Like house wife's, teens, and seniors. And where the hell does it say in the Constitution that a business must give you benefits of any kind?
Only 16 percent of employers offer health insurance to part-timers, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s
Nobody is working at WalMart as a Career job. These people are waiting for Obama to stop campaigning for $$, and do anything.
Now why aren't you going after Sears, Target, Kohls, or any other retail company? I bet you think a stock-boy should make $20 hr.
Who you calling goon? You loon. You must be the silver tongued devil?
@taxpayer
For some people that's true. But many of them actually do want fulltime jobs, and can't get them because of the policies Walmart's put in place. This is known. Why are you pretending it isn't?
From one point of view, this is correct - but not for the reason you're thinking. Most people don't actually think in terms of "careers." They just get jobs so they can keep on living. I have had many of these kinds of jobs in between what I would call "career jobs," so I know these types of people very well. So really when I say "from one point of view, this is correct," what I'm really saying is you're wrong.
I never suggested that it did, or that they must (though everyone having healthcare coverage is most definitely "in the general welfare" of the nation). Your suggestion that I did is a smokescreen to obscure/dodge MY ACTUAL POINT.
So let me repeat myself: Many of the people who are putting these kinds of policies are the very same people spending money and going on TV to talk about how the "real" unemployment rate is the one that includes part-time workers - meanwhile ignoring that their own policies feed that rate, rather than the standard unemployment rate everyone's been using for decades. It's about hypocrisy and trying to fool people into voting against their best interests.
I was using Walmart as an example. But if you want to keep adding to my evidence, I thank you.
This is an incredibly bizarre and false assumption. I'm tempted to ask your thought process behind it, but I honestly don't think you have one. Instead, I'll just ask you to imagine how you'd feel if I suddenly, randomly said, "I bet you think child labor laws should be turned over so kids can work in coal mines." The look you'd give me at the suggestion of something so ridiculous is exactly the look I'm giving you right now.
tl;dr? Ok, short version: You must be putting food up your butt, because you're talkin' s**t.
Hey look at that... my morning coffee kicked in! :)
Mr. Romney's Five Fingers of Emptiness. Is just
another reason for the public to make a fist and demand more than a pipe dream and not just a pick a number, shell game approach to his campaign. Anyone who votes on this premise of policy will learn what living after a Nuclear explosion of the national debt will bring. We have already begun the course to our economic future. QE. To go to a supply side approach and deregulating the investment houses.
This isn't what we came from in the Bush years. This is Steroids version. One thing for sure.
Mr. Romney will be a one term President if elected. His library will be discontinued well wishes cards in the bins of Walmart.
I will vote my pocket book and see the advantage of following the path that leads to consistent stability over Pipe Dream Voodoo economics that are not in focus with the current economic indicators.
I believe the Presidents road to recovery for the next four years is a Peaceful and Stable stated plan.
God Bless These Our United States
To Our Soldiers be True
I beleive you have to look at the way Mitt Romney was chosen, he turned out to be the least undesirable GOP candidate they had. Does ON ONE remember how the primary went? Romney may be able to make lots of money, the USA is NOT a business. We are people, and corporations ARE NOT. They are greedy and do not care how they destroy the middle class. I can't beleive why ANY women would vote for Romney. The new GOP has gone through a time warp to to the 1950's. They want abortion to be illegal, and to overturn Roe v Wade.
The recovery in Metro Raleigh is strong. Everywhere I go I see new commercial and home construction, especially Town Houses and Condos as more folks from NY, Jersey, and points North move here, the Boomers do not follow past trends of RV living but go where it is fairly mild, ocean not too far away, reasonable housing prices and buy. We are blessed with the greatest medical research, and hospitals, a population that is well educated thanks to our great Universities, and diverse. Closest Atlantic beaches less than 2 hours away. So come on over to Raleigh and find yourself a place to live. It would be perfect if state houses were not Repub dominated. Maybe that will change in November.
Myrtle Beach was nice. Where are the boardwalks? You need boardwalks. I remember drawing circles in the sand there, not much else to do. I saw the movie Grease there for the first time. The people weren't all that friendly. I'll stick to my dream of a bungalow on the beach of Point Pleasant.
We elected two CEOs president in the past: Herbert Hoover, whose term began in prosperity and ended in financial collapse; and George W. Bush, whose term began in prosperity and ended in financial collapse. Mitt Romney says that as a CEO, he's uniquely qualified to bully the economy and Congress and China and ... Well, we can only hope he'll live up to the record of his CEO predecessors.
... and Willard's Fact-Free Campaign Tour continues ...
Last week, my husband and I drove from the Delmarva Peninsula to western North Carolina and back. Along the way, we saw:
new residential construction
new commercial construction
roadwork
signs for available jobs
We may not be getting there fast enough, but we ARE moving in the right direction.
Oh, and I'd like to remind Republicans that the following were initiated under NATIONAL SECURITY legislation: school lunches (1940s), interstate highways (1950s), federally subsized student loans (1960s -- the National Defense Education Act). Spending at home -- and not on new weapons systems -- makes us a stronger nation.
If it weren't for all the GOP controlled States laying off public employees in record numbers this recovery would be a lot further along. And if it weren't for the GOP's efforts to block, sideline, or fillibuster every bill that would have created jobs, we'd be out of this thing.
I believe if Romney wins it will be the end of the US as we know it today....We will go backwards in womens rights that took decades to achieve, the two supreme court justices he will pick will make the court so conservative it will last for decades. They will repeal Roe vs Wade and send us back to the dark ages with back street abortions. They will repeal Obamacare which is already helping millions get the care they need, some will die for lack of care ( some will be kicked off plans because of long term illnesses) some will not be able to go to a Doctor. It will be catastophic....And all of his talk about Medicare and Social Security is nothing but lies, he considers them expenses he can do away with as quickly as possible....All he really cares about is making sure the rich get richer at our expense, the tax cuts for the rich will just get bigger and the middle class will pay for every one of them...And we know what a good foreign policy he has...his trip to Britian was a disaster to say the least, he insulted everyone he talked to. If he has a chance we will go to war with Iran and other eastern countries. Our Military is worn out from Iraq and Aftganistan and need to come home and stay here...we cannot afford any more lost lives for the benifit of the GOP!!!! Our soldiers lives are precious and should never be used at the whim of the President or GOP!!! I know that the Republicans are cheating with all the voter fraud schemes, but I am hoping that the American People will get out and vote and show them that we are not as dumb as they think we are. I am shocked at how many have been fooled by all the lies and false ads. We need to vote for President Obama and move forward.....
To this, the GOP candidates reply, "This is not what a recovery looks like." Looks like? What does it look like then? Oh yeah, lower taxes on the richest. Because that's their answer to everything.
Reading all this from Europe - working for Scandinavian Companies and Market Magazine, My problem is that if Obama has tried to pull this economy from the Abyss as it looks, why are the Americans so forgetful to remember who brought the economy down and who is trying to revive it. I say this because polls keep on showing Obama loosing to Romney whom here in Europe there is very low sentiment for him. What is going on with the American people? We recalled that this is the same way George W Bush was voted in. Someone who initially did not even know the American allies. He ended up putting the country into two wars. For me this is a very strange elections where the incumbent don't seem t have done enough to get a head wind
There are some very good points made here. I think it is important to consider housing prices and auto sales. However, this information is a little distorted. The first two graphs are conveniently data from only the last year. The remainder of the graphs (except for economic confidence) show levels going downwards, then upwards with little if any improvement from the starting year. I understand we are going in the right direction. However, I don't think it's fair to call out Romney for paying attention to what the Obama administration has done and what they said they would do in 2008.
If Romney wins he will most definitely claim the Obama recovery as his own. But if the economy crashes in the next two years he'll blame that on Obama who has not been able to drive a single bit of economic recovery legislation since 2010.
And, in that regard, no one (republican or MSM media outlet) is going to take him seriously.
The right will call this for what they say it is: Biased.
And the MSM won't give a @!$%#, per norm.
Anybody who thinks the U.S. economy has been mismanaged by President Obama needs to do a comparison of the American recovery (GDP per capita) and that of the United Kingdom since the "global economic meltdown" of 2008/2009. In 2007 GDP per capita in the U.S was $46,349 as compared to $46,123 in the U.K. In 2011 GDP in the U.S. was $48,442 as compared to $38,818 for the U.K. Bet the wish they had an Obama for Prime Minister. Figures are from the World Bank in US dollars.
Wade Roberts aka GWHunta