Economy Gains No Jobs in August, Rate Holds at 9.1%

[OhioChick]

Published: Friday, 2 Sep 2011 | 11:12 AM ET

The US economy created no jobs and the unemployment rate held steadily higher at 9.1 percent in August, fueling concerns that the US is heading for another recession.

It was the first time since World War II that the economy had precisely net zero jobs created for a month.

Economists had been expecting the report to show a net of 75,000 jobs created, an unusually low number considering the US is technically more than two years removed from the end of the last recession .

Stocks sold off sharply following the report, while bond prices rose and the US dollar fell nearly 2 percent against the Swiss franc.

More: http://www.cnbc.com/id/44370439

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Graph:

Massive loss of jobs since 1999, steeper loss since 2000.
How can we build a recovery out NO tax base?

[ixion]

2. I didn't think anyone could be worse than BushCo on job creation

I was, sadly, mistaken. That graph is abysmal.

[Dokkie]

3. I believe I heard this from Maddow

But even as bad as it is, Obama has created more jobs that the whole 8yrs of Bush. Someone back me up if you have link or youtube video. So yup, its still an improvement than Bush :)

[ixion]

4. I have 8 years on this board of ranting and railing against BushCo

so please don't take this comment as shilling, but I don't see those jobs of which you speak, and unless you have some other data to refute this chart, I'm going to have to disagree with you, as painful as that may be for me.

[Igel]

5. It's because of the timing.

Lots of jobs were created under *; lots were lost in the downturns.

The first downturn was Clinton's creation, everything was in place so the recession began before * could do squat. The recession came after near record low unemployment. Under * the results of the recession were mostly undone, and job creation kept up (barely) with population growth until the 2007 recession--but what undid the record was fall 2008.

Had the 2001 recession started a few months earlier * or the fall 2008 financial crisis a few months later would have had a positive job growth number.

Obama won the lottery: unemployment bottomed out within a month of his taking office, even though there was little unique to what he did to stop it. TARP helped; there were some PR successes and analyses that rely rather cunningly on not including opportunity costs.

What you should do is count job creation from pre-recession peak to pre-recession peak or from unemployment trough to unemployment trough. Unless you really think that one man sitting behind a desk has enough power to control 300 million people's behavior with no more mechanism than his will.

[blkmusclmachine]

6. GOP dancing in the halls:

"That's the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh..." :party: