AS ELECTION NEARS, A FINAL TORRENT OF BS. Vice President Kamala Harris got some terrible news going into the last weekend of the presidential campaign when the Labor Department reported that the economy added just 12,000 jobs in October. Even with hurricanes and a Boeing strike, economists had expected a job gain of 100,000 or 110,000 jobs. Instead, the number was 12,000. In addition, the Labor Department revised figures for August and September downward by 112,000 jobs, “reflecting that the labor market was softer in the late summer than previously reported,” in the words of the Washington Post. Given that jobs reports have been revised downward in eight of the last 11 months, October’s 12,000 might even turn out to be less than zero.
So that is bad for an incumbent vice president trying to win the White House in a time of deep economic concerns among voters. Which may explain the tenor of the campaign in the last few days.
