President Barack Obama will start the second day of his Rust Belt bus tour Friday with another critical economic report card, courtesy of the latest monthly jobs report that arrives at 8:30 a.m. Though predicting the reports can be tricky, Wall Street analysts expect the economy added close to 100,000 jobs last month. That would be an improvement over a weak 69,000 in May, but not enough to start bringing down an 8.2 percent unemployment rate that stands as the single biggest obstacle to Obama’s re-election.
No president since World War II has won re-election with a jobless rate over 7.4 percent, a figure Obama is unlikely to reach no matter what number the government reports Friday. Obama is quickly running out of time to bring the jobless rate down with just five reports—including Friday’s—before the election. The report takes on added importance as it will help set impressions of the economic trend heading in the summer vacation season, when voters tend to tune out.
Voters also tend to react to conditions on the ground rather than any single headline jobs numbers. And it takes time for a even a very strong jobs report to translate into more steady paychecks and increased consumer spending and confidence, making Obama’s time-table even shorter.
Another weak jobs report of 100,000 or less would play directly into Mitt Romney’s argument that Obama has failed to push the economy onto a stronger track and that it is time to try a new approach highlighted by lower taxes and less regulation.
A soft jobs number would also help wash away a dismal news cycle for Romney that included a tortured response to the Supreme Court’s health care decision and repeated carping from conservatives worried about the direction of the GOP standard bearer’s campaign. The Romney camp has already started to try changing the conversation by disclosing plans for a possible foreign tour and discussing the campaign’s record $100 million-plus June fundraising haul. A bad jobs number would further shift the subject back onto friendlier terrain.
But a bad number is far from certain. A hopeful private report on Thursday showing employers added 176,000 jobs in June led some analysts to boost their estimate for Friday, suggesting Obama could get a rare bit of good economic news when the Labor Department announces the official number at 8:30 a.m. A reduction in weekly jobless claims also nudged some estimates for the June jobs number higher.