Summer is approaching and nerves are jangling. In recent years the green shoots of the early months withered in the heat of summer. The queue of people worried that this summer will be another in which a recovery is aborted is long: the unemployed, retailers, investors, President Barack Obama and his team, incumbent congressmen of both parties, home builders, and car salesman—to name just a few. Mitt Romney, although not one to wish the nation ill, would be less than human if he did not feel a frisson of excitement at every bit of news that suggests the green shoots won’t flower until after the November elections.
Friday’s jobs report provided the Republican contender with just such a frisson. Only 115,000 jobs were created in April, and the unemployment rate dropped from 8.2 percent in March to 8.1 percent, the lowest level since Barack Obama took the oath of office in January of 2009, but only because thousands more workers gave up the job hunt. If those discouraged workers had remained in the work force, the unemployment rate would be in double digits.
