The U.S. economy? Slippin' and slidin'--it's all in the jobs report (both excerpts below are from Ezra Klein of the Washington Post):
Early Friday morning (before jobs report released):
Previewing the June jobs report: 100,000 jobs? 125,000?: "The big news today will be the jobs report, which comes out at 8:30am. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News expect to learn that the economy added 100,000 jobs in June — well above the 69,000 it added in May, but well below the 259,000 it added in February. Goldman Sachs, which is expecting to see that we added 125,000 jobs in June, points out that this will be the first jobs report in awhile that “should be relatively free of the distortions that have plagued analysis of the underlying employment trend recently. In particular, the ‘payback’ for the unusually mild winter is now almost certainly behind us.” That is to say, the June jobs report might be a clearer look at the underlying trends in the economy than either the quick, weather-aided growth we saw early in the year or the sharp deceleration we saw in May. Hopefully, it won’t be too depressing."
Later Friday--after the jobs report released:
The June jobs report in one word: ‘unchanged’: "In this economy, little or no change isn’t good enough. We added 80,000 jobs in June. That’s not enough to keep up with population growth. So, in the context of our growing workforce, the labor market lost ground last month."
So forget all the "spin"--bottom line: the job situation got worse last month. The economy? Just slippin' and slidin'.
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