The economy may be in a weakening phase, growing just 0.2 percent in the first quarter and the Atlanta Federal Reserve's forecast showing an expansion of only 0.8 percent by the end of June.
But this weakness likely won't be reflected in the Department of Labor’s job report for April, says New York Post
columnist John Crudele.
"That’s because Labor uses trick statistics when it gives a picture of the springtime job market," he writes. "Each spring, Labor starts adding phantom jobs to its count— jobs they guess have been created but can’t prove have been created."
Some of the addition relates to weather. "At Labor, good weather = the birth of companies = more jobs," Crudele explains. "And even in this day and age of instantaneous knowledge of everything, Labor still guesses at how many jobs these newly born companies are generating."
Crudele estimates the April report, which comes out Friday, will include about 263,000 phantom jobs.
A Bloomberg survey of economists produced a median estimate of 225,000 for the total job gain last month. In March, the economy added only 126,000 jobs, the weakest showing since December 2013.
Weak Obama Economy
Meanwhile, Stephen Moore, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, says the paltry first-quarter growth in gross domestic product offers one more piece of evidence as to the desultory state of the economy under President Obama.
"Are the alarm bells finally clanging at the White House and in Congress? They should be,"
he writes in The Washington Times. The recovery from the 2007-09 recession is the slowest in 50 years, Moore says.
"This is a national crisis, not any less significant than the burning of Baltimore last week ... We are $1.6 trillion lower on current GDP than we should be."
But all is not lost, Moore maintains "Fortunately, there are natural tailwinds that should accelerate growth over the next year or so."
That includes low energy prices and the strong dollar, which is attracting "record amounts of new investment and construction" to our shores, he says.
Oil prices have dropped 42 percent since last June, and the dollar hit multi-year highs against a range of currencies in recent months.
"But there's no getting back that nearly $2 trillion of GDP that is now permanently missing," Moore writes. "We can now officially declare Obamanomics a grand failed experiment. Let's hope the history books get it right so we are never, ever foolish enough to try this again."
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