Washington — August began with rising fears that another recession was about to hit. That was then.
A month later, the economy and the stock market appear more resilient, suggesting that consumers, businesses and investors remain confident enough to keep spending.
A more authoritative test will come today, when the government issues the August jobs report. Employers are expected to have added 93,000 jobs, which would not be enough to significantly lower the jobless rate of 9.1 percent.
But it would solidify evidence that the economy, though still weak, is growing steadily. Many analysts now expect it to strengthen in the months ahead.
A stream of data released Thursday bolstered the case for an economy that’s healthier than it seemed just weeks ago:
l Americans kept shopping in August despite higher prices and a hurricane that battered the East Coast during the important back-to-school shopping season.
l Car buyers lifted U.S. sales last month for most automakers. Analysts had expected a weaker August because of anxiety about the economy and Hurricane Irene, which forced many dealers to close during the month’s final weekend.
l Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that the job market may be improving slightly.
l Manufacturing managed to expand in August for the 25th straight month. Last month’s growth, though modest, defied fears that manufacturing, one of the economy’s few sources of strength, had contracted last month.
All that delivered a sense of relief that the economy is still expanding — even if it’s not enough to reduce unemployment, raise wages and drive the housing market out of its depression.
“Today’s releases add to the evidence that underlying economic conditions aren’t half as bad as feared a few weeks ago,” said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.
Comments
jmadison 1 year, 8 months ago
Jobs report --ZERO new jobs in August.
merrill 1 year, 8 months ago
When the unemployed run out of benefits no one knows what happens to them. To assume these folks found jobs is rather reckless.
Until millions upon millions are returned to work payrolls making more than $12.50 - $17.50 per hour the economy will not surge ahead.
Politicians are the most unreliable source of information. All that comes to their minds is having consumers become "shop till you drop" robots. New World Order Reaganomics Wreckanomics replaced jobs with obscene high interest credit cards and the financial institutions have been making out like deregulated bandits.
Meanwhile the economy and property values continue going straight to hell.
merrill 1 year, 8 months ago
The main features of Reagan,Bush and Bush New World Order reckless economics are as follows:
TABOR is Coming by Grover Norquist and Koch Bros sells out state governments http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2005/0705rebne.html
The Reagan/Bush Savings and Loan Heist(Cost taxpayers $1.4 trillion) http://rationalrevolution0.tripod.com/war/bush_family_and_the_s.htm
Wall Street Bank Fraud on Consumers under Bush/Cheney sent the economy out the window costing taxpayers many many $$$ trillions and millions of jobs. http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0709macewan.html
ONLY 3 financial institutions instead of several were at risk so why $700 billion in bail out money? http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/10/good_billions_after_bad_one_year
Tax cuts which do nothing to make an economy strong or produce jobs. And tax cuts are a tax increase to others in order to make up the loss in revenue = duped again.
In the end big debt and super duper bailouts were the results which does not seem to bother Republicans, as long as they are in power.
Fossick 1 year, 8 months ago
Merrill, sometimes I wonder why you give Obama so little credit for being President.
Mike_Gerhardt 1 year, 8 months ago
Sir, you seem fixated on cutting and pasting links to the same websites repeatedly. Are they paying you to spam us, or do you have some kind of obsession?
snap_pop_no_crackle 1 year, 8 months ago
It's about gotten to the point where I think Biden could have actually done a better job than the current resident of 1600 Penn Ave.
Fossick 1 year, 8 months ago
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened."
Mike_Gerhardt 1 year, 8 months ago
I fail to understand how you are defining growth. 0 jobs created this month!
Mike_Gerhardt 1 year, 8 months ago
I fail to understand how you are defining growth. 0 jobs created this month!
tuschkahouma 1 year, 8 months ago
Merrill posts the same posts over because you dimwits never learn and never admit how and why you're always wrong like the haters you are...
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