Post date: Nov 02, 2012 8:7:28 PM
It is days before the election, the presidential election, is this jobs report a game changer? Why or why not?
CARY LEAHEY, SENIOR ADVISOR, DECISION ECONOMICS SAID:
No, not really. Certainly Obama feels a lot better that the unemployment rate did not back up to 8%. You can run a lot harder the last few days before the finish line with a 7% unemployment rate and not an 8% unemployment rate. But, most people pretty much have made up their mind by the middle of July.ANCHOR, OFF-CAMERA, ENGLISH SAID:
They talk a lot about the undecided limping ahead in this election, so you don't think that some of the people sitting out there are saying, oh well this interesting. This might change because I am worried about jobs.
CARY LEAHEY, SENIOR ADVISOR, DECISION ECONOMICS SAID:
Well you can always say this time is different and because there is now talk of a potential 269/269 tie, that's certainly possible that even in a state as small a New Hampshire, a few people sitting on the fences are more likely or Ohio sitting on the fences, they may say, well he kept it under 8%, he's got my vote. But the historical record looking at the national data doesn't back that up, maybe this time is different and every tenth of a percent counts. So, if that's the case it is going to help Obama enough perhaps to give him the couple of electoral votes he needs to win.
ANCHOR, OFF-CAMERA, ENGLISH SAID:
If you could just give your quick gut reaction on how you felt when you saw the numbers.
CARY LEAHEY, SENIOR ADVISOR, DECISION ECONOMICS SAID:
I thought the employment report was pretty good. I mean it makes you feel pretty good to say that sixty days ago, when you were afraid that you may unravel to a double dip, you actually increased the pace job creation by a 100,000 workers to a 170,000. While that's not a great pace, it certainly is very reassuring that you would at least build up some head of steam going into one of the worst natural disasters, particularly on the East Coast, and the elections, and then the fiscal cliff. What we analysts really worry about is that the consumer and the economy as a whole can slip on the banana called the fiscal cliff, but we are not going to know about it till probably Christmas is over.