The economy added only 148,000 jobs during September, economists were expecting 185,000, and the White House spins this as a “solid” report.
Via Beltway Confidential:
Pity Jason Furman, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, because he has the difficult job of spinning month after month of mediocre jobs reports.
And it seems he has run out of adjectives.
“While job growth remained solid in September, there is no question that the focus of policy should be on how to achieve a faster pace of job growth by increasing certainty and investing in jobs, rather than the self-inflicted wounds of the past several weeks that increased uncertainty and inhibited job growth,” Furman said.
Notice his favorite word, “solid.”
Furman acknowledged the poor report and suggested that October would probably be worse, saying, “More recent indicators suggest the labor market worsened in the month of October.”