Jobless rate throws Romney adviser off message

By: Sarah B. Boxer
Topics: Campaign 2012

Gregory Mankiw, left, testifies on Capitol Hill in this 2004 file photo. Then White House budget director Joshua Bolten is at right.

(Credit: AP)

RENO, Nev. -- It's a bad day on the trail when your economic adviser ruminates about how a rebounding jobless market is helping President Obama politically.

"Good news today about employment," wrote Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist and adviser to Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, on his blog.

"The 243,000 increase in jobs is a very solid number. The graph below shows how the prices at Intrade reacted when the news was released at 8:30 am. President Obama's probability of being reelected rose by about 2 percentage points."

At a campaign appearance, the candidate did not mention Mankiw's blog post and was more restrained, even though he, too, had to acknowledge that the downward creep in unemployment to 8.3 percent in January was a positive development. He argued that without Obama at the helm, it would have been even better.

"We got good news this morning on job creation in January. I hope that continues, we get people back to work," Romney said at a business roundtable. "That is the antidote, by the way, to falling home prices -- is people going back to work, being able to buy homes. . But this president has not helped the process. He's hurt it. Sometimes I got the impression that speaking to you that you don't think you have a friend in Washington. And I can assure you that if I'm the president, I will see what you do as being a very good thing. A patriotic and good thing, which is employ people and putting them to work."

It is not the first time Mankiw has articulated mainstream economic views that contradicted his boss in February of an election year. Eight years ago, as head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, Mankiw found himself under fire for saying that the U.S. economy "probably" benefits in the long run when American firms outsource jobs overseas.

Sarah B. Boxer
Sarah B. Boxer covers politics for CBS News.
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by bsvitamins1 February 4, 2012 9:44 PM EST: People seem to forget that it took 8 or more years of bad policies to put us where we are at . You can't expect it to be fixed in just four years in office. I see things turning around now so why change in mid stream lets keep thing going instead of letting the Republicans back in office lets keep them out of both house and senate and give the us a chance to fix the two BUSH's mess.; Reply to this comment

by rayward73446 February 4, 2012 8:54 AM EST

These job numbers are in spite of the Repubs fighting every effort by President Obama to get Americans back to work. When is enough not enough? Vote the do nothing Republican House out of office and let's get America back to work! Four more years baby!

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by bsvitamins1 February 4, 2012 9:43 PM EST: People seem to forget that it took 8 or more years of bad policies to put us where we are at . You can't expect it to be fixed in just four years in office. I see things turning around now so why change in mid stream lets keep thing going instead of letting the Republicans back in office lets keep them out of both house and senate and give the us a chance to fix the two BUSH's mess.


by nearl451 February 3, 2012 9:54 PM EST: There are a lot of Republicans waxing apoplectic today on the jobs news.; Reply to this comment


by obwan222 February 3, 2012 7:01 PM EST: The Republican plan to run around screaming, "The sky if falling!" has been changed to saying, "Well, the sky is not looking as good as it could."; Reply to this comment

by RobAla February 3, 2012 6:00 PM EST

CBS 02/03/12: Stephanie Condon: "In spite of the ongoing recovery, conservatives enjoy pointing out that the Reagan recovery was more robust -- James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute points out that the economy grew 7.2 percent in the second full year of the Reagan recovery, while growth hit 1.7 percent in 2011, the second full year of recovery in the Obama administration."

The point being that President Obama had a working model of how to come out of a recession, and he ignored it. President Obama decided to experiment on his own, and it has resulted in extending the economic downturn and extending the recession. We are crawling out of this recession at a snails pace, and it is in spite of President Obama's failed policies.

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by nearl451 February 3, 2012 9:56 PM EST: Whistling in the graveyard, Rob. That's all you have right now.

by ladyang February 3, 2012 4:55 PM EST

GOOD NEWS MR PRESIDENT! And welcome to your second term. The neocons/teabaggers will be crying in the moonshine tonight!

OBAMA/BIDEN 2012! "We got it straight in 08"

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by ProgressNow February 3, 2012 5:40 PM EST: I'm love'n it!!!!


by cmwinter1 February 3, 2012 6:56 PM EST: @ladyang...and I use the term "lady" loosely...you shouldn't at all...
Your use of the term "teabaggers" either shows your ignorance or your low class...pretty obvious just who drinks the "moonshine."
If your guy actually does pull off a win in 2012...with his bag of tricks and nasties in the weeds behind him...God help us all.
America will be crying. Open your eyes.

by cbs4111 February 3, 2012 3:53 PM EST

Only an absolute idiot would believe that 243,000 jobs would lower the unemployment rate by 2 tenths, especially with 1st time claims running at 350,000+. Intelligent people will look up the numbers themselves, it's easy because they're all there under the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

The reason unemployment dropped is because the BLS thinks 1.2 million people that were looking for a job last month are no longer looking for a job this month. The BLS made a "population adjustment" and took 1.2 million people out of the labor participation pool. It's probably not true, but if it is true that's BAD NEWS, not good news.

Intelligent people will question the unemployment number.

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by Tom0686 February 3, 2012 4:45 PM EST: But, if you are really going to submit that the number belies the real percentages, then under Reagan, when he had to deal with 10.5% unemployment, it was actually worse. In any case, the same ratio and percentages have been used for decades now, so the new being good or bad is still relevant.

REAL intelligent people would know that the same criteria that is used to gather these percentages, has been the same criteria used for decades now. So what was good and bad news then, is the same now.