Don't underreact to one bad jobs report

Let's get the economy moving again

When something like Friday’s disappointing jobs report happens, everyone publishes their takes online and also back-channels some slightly different takes to folks like me. And I would say the dominant back-channel sentiment about Democratic Party policymakers is that they don’t think we should overreact to a single month’s jobs report, especially because these things are always revised and there are some questions about seasonal adjustments¹ or the reference week potentially corresponding with spring break, etc., etc., etc.

Those points are all well-taken, and I agree we shouldn’t overreact.

That said, we shouldn’t underreact either. After the big crash in the winter of 2008-09, the mainstream assumption was that the economy would “bounce back” with rapid growth once jobs started returning. The assumption that this was more or less inevitable was initially so strong that the fact that it wasn’t happening didn’t make a proper impression. Census hiring was confused with permanent job gr…