Jobs report worry you? Wait for its 2nd act

THE White House had better start paying attention to the economic data being reported by various government agencies. I’m not saying that the anti-Trump “resistance” has gotten control of the statistics, but something suspicious has been going on.

And that extra attention should start with the October employment report that’s due on Friday.

I mentioned in a column on Sept. 11 that changes to the seasonal adjustments in the employment report for August, for instance, had made job growth look a lot slower than it actually was.

I wrote back then: “Bottom line, the Labor Department made major changes to [seasonal] adjustments from last year and those changes cut the number of jobs created in August by 95,000.”

Instead of amounting to 296,000 — a huge number — job gains totaled only 201,000, I wrote in that Sept. 11 column.

So what happened when the Labor Department got around to correcting the August numbers in its next report? Job growth for August was revised upward by a major amount. While it didn’t quite reach the 296,000 jobs I mentioned, the August figure did get ratcheted up to 270,000 jobs.

From an original figure of 201,000 reported by the Labor Department to 270,000 — that’s an enormous revision. Or, some might say, the Labor Department was correcting a big error in its reporting.

As I also said in the column, a lot of other government economic figures have been initially reported on the low side and then revised upward.

Why does it matter? Because these upward revisions to previously released figures are always reported by government agencies at the end of the most current press release. And media organizations — pressed as they usually are for time and for space — don’t usually dig past the headline in the press release.

So, for political and public relations purposes, the Trump administration is hurt when economic figures are initially reported low and then revised upward. There’s something else. When September’s job growth came in at 134,000, which was short of expectations, that became the focus of news coverage. Little attention was given to the “oops” in the last paragraph of the press release that announced the 69,000 upward revision to 270,000 in the August figures.

Also the much higher, revised August figure became the basis upon which the September jobs numbers were calculated. What I mean is this: If August had only been revised higher by, say, 20,000 jobs, September’s growth would have been another 49,000 jobs (69,000 minus 20,000).

Those extra 49,000 August jobs would have plopped over into September.

It’ll be interesting to see how much of a revision there will be to September’s growth of a measly 134,000 when the latest figures are released on Friday.

As I said last week, economic growth seems to be slowing.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve on Monday estimated that our country’s gross domestic product will grow at only a 2.6 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter. It has been growing at more than 4 percent over the past two quarters.

The White House has said it thinks the economy will grow at more than 3 percent. And it had better grow by at least that much because the ill-advised tax cut is making the budget deficit soar.

Here’s something else the Republicans can worry about.

According to a new report by Bankrate.com, 78 percent of Americans earning less than $30,000 a year report that their financial situation has not improved since the 2016 election. And 27 percent say it is worse.

On the other hand, 54 percent of Americans with income over $75,000 a year are feeling better about their financial condition and 26 percent in that group are feeling “much better” about their finances.

Retirement-aged people are reporting the lowest rate of financial improvement, with 76 percent over age 65 saying their finances have not improved over the past two years.

You can talk all you want about the low employment rate — which, as I’ve said many times, is meaningless — or the growth of the gross domestic product, but the real financial issue in people’s heads when they vote is: “Am I better off now than I was under the last guy?” President Trump recently promised he’d announce a 10 percent middle-class tax cut before the congressional elections. Well, he’s got only a few days lleft to keep that promise. So, thankfully, this probably isn’t going to happen. Don’t get me wrong — I’d like to pay less tax as much as the next overburdened taxpayer. But while a tax cut might get Republicans a few votes, that kind of talk will also guarantee that the Federal Reserve gets more nervous and won’t think twice about raising interest rates. The Fed is already worried about too much liquidity — money — in the economy. Promising to give people more money to spend, even if it’s an obvious political move, will make the Fed more steadfast.