Soledad O'Brien Finds the Positive In 14.6 Percent Underemployment
After the last jobs report before the election, CNN's Soledad O'Brien
tried to be positive even with high underemployment and unemployment
rates. On Friday's Starting Point, she ridiculously cast underemployment moving down one tenth of a percent to 14.6 as "improving."
"Underemployment which was 14.7 percent, now 14.6; labor force
participation, as well, that's better. Are you feeling encouraged at
all?" she asked conservative guest Grover Norquist. "No. This is not
even a dead cat bounce," he replied.
[Video below the break. Audio here.]
O'Brien hailed the report as "what I think some people are saying are
good, decent numbers." She also discarded the Republican attack that
Obama has negative net jobs numbers for his presidency.
"With this report now, the President has created more jobs than were
lost. I think this report now puts him over the edge on that," she said
before asking if that was enough.
"Half of the people who just graduated from college are either fully
unemployed or grossly underemployed," stated Norquist. "Young people are
looking at a future where there just aren't jobs and certainly aren't
good-paying jobs. And this report, if the Obama people are happy with
this, that's the most depressing thing I've heard. This is more of the
same."
A transcript of the coverage, which aired on Starting Point on November 2 at 8:35 a.m. EDT, is as follows:
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Ali, let me stop you for a second. Because what I'm
reading here – and tell me if I'm wrong – for August it was revised from
142 to 192,000 non-farm payroll –
ALI VELSHI: 192, you're right. You are right. I misread that, to 192.
So these are now in the vicinity of strong. Both President Obama and
Mitt Romney have talked about 12 million jobs in four years. That would
be three million a year, 250,000 a month. Now we're edging up to 200,000
in August. We're now getting into the vicinity of real job creation
that could actually have an effect on people. And that's what's important here.
As you know, I have real problems with the unemployment number being
bandied around as a political football, because it's hard to understand.
It actually is a moving target. Grover gets stuck on it, but the fact
is that this job creation number and the wages earned and the type of
jobs are all more important, and this is actually quite positive. I
don't mean that politically. I mean this is good for America.
O'BRIEN: Okay, so let's talk about what you've raised. And I want to
bring in Candy Crowley for this. You know, Ali, Candy, said that
manufacturing is what he wants to look at. And when I read what they say
about manufacturing, manufacturing employment changed little in
October. On net, manufacturing employment has shown little change since
April. So that has got to be a little black cloud in what I think some
people are saying are good, decent numbers.
(...)
[8:52]
O'BRIEN: All right, Erin, let me ask you a question. With this report
now, the President has created more jobs than were lost. I think this
report now puts him over the edge on that. I think in terms of a
narrative, we've been talking about some of the political spin out of
this that's going to be important. Alison said it's not adding enough.
Does this -- now with especially the revisions up, is it adding enough?
CHRISTINE ROMANS: Well this year, so now the average according to the
government employment growth this year has now averaged 157,000 a month.
ERIN BURNETT: What do you need?
ROMANS: You need 125 to 150 about. So you're basically absorbing the
new entrants into the workforce. But you still have all those people who
got shut out. You need – you need to be creating more than this to be
robustly growing and to really be growing the economy. But now we're
starting to absorb new entrants into the workforce.
BURNETT: It's like we call it the hole. So you know you can be back to
where you were. But the hole, it's all the people who -- you know when
we were losing jobs there were still people who were coming of age, who
wanted to get jobs, who were coming to this country. The immigration
slowed down but it still happened. And those people are all sitting out
there.
So even if you're net even with where you were, we've got more people
living in this country and more people who want jobs. That's what we
call the hole, that's what you have to dig out and start to get people –
those people with jobs.
(...)
[8:57]
O'BRIEN: Okay. It's time for "End Point". The rules of "End Point",
short and tight. Grover Norquist, this is for you. A couple of things I
want to ask you about. Two stats that you spoke about when we started
this conversation have actually improved a little bit. Not much, but a
little bit. Underemployment which was 14.7 percent, now 14.6; labor
force participation, as well, that's better. Are you feeling encouraged
at all?
GROVER NORQUIST: No. This is not even a dead cat bounce. Half of the
people who just graduated from college are either fully unemployed or
grossly underemployed. Young people are looking at a future where there
just aren't jobs and certainly aren't good-paying jobs.
And this report, if the Obama people are happy with this, that's the
most depressing thing I've heard. This is more of the same. And what is
he going to do to fix it? More debt, more spending, higher taxes. We did
that for the last four years and it hasn't made things better. And
we've got a declining standard of living and we're going to be paying
for this debt forever.
