Griper Blade: Reality-Based Economics

It's obviously largely coincidental, but it seems like reality is trying to punctuate a point Bill Clinton made last night -- that Democratic presidents vastly outperform Republicans in terms of job creation. "Since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24," Clinton said. "In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private-sector jobs. So what's the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 [million]." PolitiFact rates the statement as true.

And today, the Department of Labor reports that "First-time claims for state unemployment benefits declined by the largest amount in more than a month in the latest week."

"The number of initial claims in the week ending Sept. 1 fell 12,000 to 365,000," MarketWatch reports. "The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for claims to fall a slight 1,000 to 373,000."

Steve Benen explains, "In terms of metrics, when jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it's considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape, and when the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are being created rather quickly. We've only managed to dip below the 370,000 threshold seven times in the last 22 weeks, but the more encouraging news is that we've been below 370,000 in six of the last nine weeks."...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]