Party with your helmets on!
People appear giddy with joy that July saw the loss of only 250,000 jobs. Here's how the US News & World Report characterized the news : "Finally, some good news for the nation's long-suffering job seekers: Employers cut just 247,000 jobs last month, the smallest payroll slice since last August, the Labor Department reported today." (Not sure myself why finding out that nearly 250,000 people are also now looking for jobs would make the "long-suffering job seekers" so happy...) Econbrowser's take on the report is not quite as happy, pointing to a key issue with the loss of so many jobs: "But the problem is, if a traditional economic recovery had actually begun in June (8 weeks after the April peak in claims), the number of people with jobs should have increased in July rather than fallen by another quarter million." Yes. To Econbrowser, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs is a concern, not a celebration. And here's more...