Falling jobless rate could be boon to Obama after poor debate performance: analysts
- ZhiLinFei
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E-mail Xinhua, October 6, 2012
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- The latest fall of the U.S. unemployment rate could provide a boost to U.S. President Barack Obama in the lead up to the November election day, analysts said Friday.
The September jobless rate on Friday fell to 7.8 percent, the lowest since September 2009 and the first time in nearly four years that the unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent, the U.S. Labor Department reported.
The news is welcome in the Obama camp, especially after what pundits and politicos agreed as a poor performance in Wednesday night's debate against his more energized and aggressive Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who dominated the event.
While Obama is ahead by 3 points in Real Clear Politics' nationwide poll average, the race is still up for grabs. Obama needs to show that the economy is headed in the right direction if he wants to maintain his narrow lead and win a second term in the White House, the analysts said.
Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, called the report "an overall better-than-expected jobs report," which is consistent with most recent data that suggests the economy is gaining some momentum.
Gary Burtless, senior fellow in economic studies at the Washington-based think tank Brookings Institute, called Friday's report "upbeat" and "painting a brighter picture of the job market."
Economic Policy Institute economist Heidi Shierholz believed that the drop in the unemployment rate was due to people getting jobs, not due to them leaving the labor force, referring to some past unemployment reports whereby the rate dipped because people gave up looking for jobs. Jobless numbers are a measure of those actively seeking full-time work.
Still, the underemployment rate - a measure of part-time workers who want to work full-time - held steady in September at 14.7 percent, she noted.
Obama is under the gun not necessarily to fix the jobs situation overnight, but to show that he is at least steering the world's largest economy toward more jobs growth, the analysts said.
As of yet, it remains unknown how voters will view the news - whether they will see it as too little, too late - and more light will be shed on that matter when poll numbers are released on Monday.
Some analysts, however, are already predicting the possibility of a boost for Obama over Friday's report, after his loss at the first presidential debate that has eroded his lead over Romney.
"The sizeable drop in the unemployment rate could lift the president's re-election chances following a post-debate dip," Guatieri said. Enditem
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