By Sudeep Reddy
Friday’s jobs report, one of only three before the Nov. 6 election, could prove more influential in shaping perceptions about the economy than anything Mr. Obama says in Charlotte when he accepts his party’s nomination. Payroll numbers have been choppy throughout the year, and Friday’s data — released at 8:30 am Eastern time — might help clarify recent trends. (The report will also tell us whether the unemployment rate changed from July’s 8.3% and it could help the Federal Reserve determine whether to launch a new round of bond-buying next week.)
Mr. Obama doesn’t have to wait until the formal release to see the numbers. Under a decades-long practice, a select group of U.S. officials learns the contents of each month’s jobs report on the Thursday evening before its release. The Bureau of Labor Statistics delivers the information sometime Thursday afternoon to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, which analyzes the data and prepares a memo for the president. (The CEA chairman or director of the National Economic Council often informs the president in person.)
The routine is governed by a directive from the White House Office of Management and Budget. It allows top government officials — like those at the White House, Treasury Department and Fed — to know about an important report that could shake global markets. Employees of the executive branch aren’t supposed to comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official release on Friday morning. That’s why we don’t hear the White House’s spin on the report until 9:30 a.m., almost an hour after the opposing party has spit out its own statements. (The White House has gotten more careful in recent decades. Back in the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson caused a stir more than once when he commented on favorable numbers before they were released.)
Assuming the president gets a briefing on Thursday before his speech, what might he do with it? He isn’t exactly getting on stage, for one of the most important speeches of his career, to recite Labor Department data. But he conceivably could tweak his adjectives in describing the economy if the employment report is a surprise in either direction. Good luck trying to figure that out while you’re watching.
Eight years ago, President George W. Bush faced a somewhat similar scenario. His speech at the Republican convention in September 2004 came the night before a monthly jobs report, following a year of choppy data (and after what was routinely described as a jobless recovery). The prior jobs report showed that payrolls rose just 32,000 in July, so he would have had good reason to worry about more trouble in the labor market. But his convention speech offered plenty of upbeat commentary about the economy, which means he either knew the next round of data or didn’t care. The report released the morning after his speech showed a substantially better performance, a gain of 144,000 jobs in August.
There are plenty of good reasons not to obsess about a single report. All the data get revised later, and the trends are what really matter. Remember the jobs report a year ago that showed no change in payrolls — a big, fat zero — for August 2011? After a couple of rounds of revisions, the Labor Department now estimates payrolls rose by 85,000 for that month. But most people who remember the jobs data for last August would probably recall the initial print, not the revisions. So perceptions matter, especially two months before an election.
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