Chasing Cassandra

I finally read one too many “but they’re just temporary jobs at the Census” comments somewhere and sort of hit critical mass. Look, jackass, I’m as much of a doomsayer as almost anybody on this economy thing; I’m still bemoaning the effort to recreate a spending economy based on credit. But let’s not be all Cassandra to the degree that we can’t even think rationally.

Yes, the Census employs well over 100,000, but it only hired 48,000 in March, less than a third of the reported new jobs and leaving the number of permanent jobs at 114,000. That’s not exactly chicken feed.

Let’s not be the kid who is given a two-scoop ice cream cone and cries because it isn’t three scoops. Before unemployment can shrink it has to stop growing and, hello, it stopped growing in March. Yeah, there were snow storms, some of the jobs are temporary... Blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is that 162,000 more people have jobs today than had them a month ago, and we have not been able to say that in a very long time.

Don’t try to rationalize that away; celebrate it.