Today's Job Numbers: Nothing to See Here

     That's what Krugman says and I'm going to believe him over Mitt Romney's campaign team telling us today's miss on expectations shows the sky is falling.

     Expectations were for 125,000 but the numbers on nonfarm payroll from the BLS was only 96,000. I do wonder why it was so much lower than the ADP numbers though we've seen this "bifurcation" a lot lately.

    Obviously, Romney is salivating, though it seems to me this is another point not in his favor. He claimed in Tampa that he wanted this President to succeed as he wanted America to succeed. Yet, his glee at any sign of disappointment puts the lie to it. He sings from the same hymn book as Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell.

     Here's Krugman's reality check though:

     "The headline number came in a bit below expectations, but that’s probably just the noisiness in the data. The best hypothesis about the US economy this past year and more is that it has been steadily adding jobs at a pace roughly fast enough to keep up with but not get ahead of population growth. Today’s report was consistent with a continuation of that story. Nothing to see here."

     http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/no-news-on-jobs/

     The market itself, of course, after selling off came back as this now seems to make it more likely that Bernanke will do QE3.

     There are many who argue he wont do it with the election coming up as this would be seen as political tampering. But is he would have otherwise acted but doesn't because of the election isn't that actually itself a political decision?

     No doubt Romney will seize on this like manna from Heaven-Paul Ryan is already on CNBC with his patented theatrics-though of course not fact checker approved

     On the other hand, Gallup today has some interesting counter news: consumer spending was up to an average of $77 per day from $73. So if hiring was lower during the month-though as Krugman shows, likely just noise-spending was nonetheless up.

    "U.S. consumer spending climbed to its highest level is nearly four years in August 2012 at the same time that job creation appears to be improving. Gallup's Job Creation Index rose to +19 in August, up from +17 in July, and the payroll company Automatic Data Processing Inc., reported job gains last month that beat the consensus expectations. Additionally, Gallup's unadjusted unemployment rate was down in August, although the adjusted rate rose. Still, there may be other factors involved, including back-to-school spending."

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/157295/consumer-spending-climbs-close-four-year-high.aspx

    Note that it refers to an increase in the Job Creating Index in August. That's because it's based on ADP rather than today's BLS numbers.

     So these divergences hint at why Krugman calls today's numbers noise.