A downbeat jobs outlook

The American economy added only 41,000 private-sector jobs last month, the Labor Department reported, raising new concerns about the vitality of the economic recovery. There were a total of 431,000 new jobs, but the vast majority of them were temporary U.S. Census positions. The news sent stock markets plunging 3 percent in a single day, one of the sharpest declines of the year. President Obama stressed the positive, noting that private-sector jobs have grown for six consecutive months. Still, the mood in Washington was glum. “My best guess is we’ll have a continued recovery,” said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, “but it won’t feel terrific.”

So much for the Obama recovery, said Rich Lowry in National Review. The massive hike in government spending was supposed to trigger an economic boom, but “so far, we’re one boom short.” The May jobs report, though, is “a perfect distillation of Obamanomics,” which depends on short-term government spending—the stimulus package, cash-for-clunkers, etc.—“that is as sustainable as a sugar high.”

“The economy is sick,” said Bob Herbert in The New York Times, and pretending that the private sector can cure it dooms millions of Americans to misery. More than 15 million Americans are out of work and losing hope, and only major new stimulus spending—on infrastructure, schools, and clean energy—can generate the kind of economic activity that creates lots of jobs. Obama says the economy is improving, but not at a rate to prevent entire communities from becoming “islands of despair.”

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Obama can be forgiven for trying to put a positive spin on the May jobs report, said Felix Salmon in Reuters.com. His Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are vulnerable, and the persistence of near–10 percent unemployment does not exactly bode well for their prospects. It could turn out that “it’s that number, rather than anything going on right now in the Gulf of Mexico, which is really ‘Obama’s Katrina.’”