CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The Bad Jobs Report: Blame It on the Weather?

Photograph Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority – CC BY 4.0

I hate to be giving the Trump administration excuses for a weak economy, but I do feel an obligation to call the data as I see it and not make it up for political convenience. And the excuse actually does not buy them much anyhow.

The seemingly simple point is that we might well have gotten a weaker than expected jobs report in February because of weather-related factors. It wasn’t that February weather was especially bad. We did get some snowstorms in late January and February, but that is what happens in winter. Since our data are all seasonally adjusted, the question would be if February’s weather (before the reference date – February 12th) was worse than an ordinary February. My guess is probably not.

But January’s weather was likely better than a normal January. This could help to explain the better-than- expected jobs numbers in January. As I noted in my jobs preview, the weather was better than normal in the Northeast and Midwest in the second half of December and first half of January. This means that businesses that might ordinarily be forced to close for a few days because of snow were able to stay open throughout the period.

That story might show up most clearly in construction. In a typical winter some construction sites will be shut for a few days because snow or severe cold make it difficult to work. This is........

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