johnnymk

By Alan Beattie in Washington
Published: February 18 2004


Jobs again took centre stage in the political theatre of the US presidential election on Wednesday when the White House avoided backing its own recent forecast for employment, prompting Democrats to react with scorn.

At a press briefing in Washington, Scott McClellan, White House spokesman, declined to endorse the recent forecast from the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), which predicted that the average level of jobs this year would be 2.6m higher than in 2003.

"The number-crunchers will do their job," he said. "The president's job is to make sure we're creating as robust an environment as possible for job creation."

He quoted president George W. Bush as saying: "I'm not a statistician. I'm not a predictor."

The retreat marks the White House's second economy-related clarification this month. Last week, Greg Mankiw, CEA chairman, remarked that the outsourcing of US jobs overseas was "probably a plus for the economy in the long run".

The comments provoked outrage from both main parties - including Dennis Hastert, the Republican Speaker of the House - and from powerful manufacturing groups.

Mr Mankiw later called job losses due to overseas outsourcing "regrettable".

John Kerry, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, yesterday poured scorn on the administration for its job forecasts.

"Now George Bush is saying he's going to create 2.6m jobs this year alone - and his advisers are saying, 'What, you didn't actually believe that, did you?'," Mr Kerry said.

In reality, according to White House staff, the forecast - which was based on data available at the beginning of December - predicted job growth of 325,000 a month. That would imply nearly 4m net new jobs over the course of 2004.

Some economists have said that the forecast relied on an unrealistic slowing of productivity growth, to well below its average over the past few years, in order to generate higher job growth for a given rate of economic expansion.

The forecast envisaged productivity slowing to 1.4 per cent this year from an average growth rate of 4.2 per cent last year.

Unless job growth picks up in coming months, as many economists think it will, employment is likely to prove one of the main battlefields in the presidential election in November.

__________________
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” (Winston Churchill)