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Former Treasury Secretary Paulson: Recent jobs data an ‘anomaly’
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02/15/12 01:04 PM ET
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson predicted it would be “years” before the unemployment rate was back to an acceptable level, and called the positive January jobs report an “anomaly.”
Paulson wouldn’t expound upon what he would consider to be an acceptable rate, but called the January jobs report, in which unemployment fell to 8.3 percent, an “anomaly.”
“Here’s the anomaly, and here’s the anomaly that a number of economists I’ve talked to are struggling with,” Paulson continued. “If you take a look at the recent job creation, which has been quite gratifying, and you look at that — you can’t square it with the growth rate, because almost any economist would say it’s going to take a higher growth rate than we’ve had to create the jobs we’ve created.”
The economy blew away expectations in January, creating 243,000 jobs as the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since President Obama took office.
Moody’s Analytics Chief Mark Zandi called the report “unambiguously positive”; however, some economists point to less rosy data, such as gross domestic product, which at 2.8 percent grew at a slower rate than expected in the fourth quarter, as evidence that a full-blown recovery has not yet materialized.
Said Paulson, “I’ve had a couple of economists say to me, 'Hank, if you’re going back to 2010 when unemployment was the highest and then you said, "What growth rate would it take to create the jobs we’ve got today?" ' they would say 5 percent, and of course we haven’t had that kind of growth.
“So, to me, that’s again rather troubling,” Paulson continued. “I’m not being an alarmist. I just think that until we deal with the huge structural issues we’ve got and work across the aisle and compromise, we’re not going to get the economy on the kind of sustainable growth track we need.”
The economy and unemployment will be a key election-year issue, as Republicans in Congress, as well as the GOP presidential candidates, have blasted the president, saying he made the economy worse by impeding growth through excessive regulation and bad policy.
Upon release of January’s positive report, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) called the numbers “good news” but said Americans “shouldn’t settle.”
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) suggested the administration was involved in cooking the numbers, although he didn’t offer any evidence to back up the claim.
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