More Good Economic News

The boom continues. The Labor Department’s May report estimates that that the economy added 248,000 jobs last month. Consistent with recent experience, that number is likely to be adjusted upward when the final numbers are in. Current job increase numbers for March and April are 353,000 and 346,000 respectively, meaning that the economy has added nearly 1,000,000 new jobs in the last three months.
The Associated Press notes that the jobs report “was good news for President Bush.” But the AP wouldn’t want anyone to draw the wrong conclusions, so it can’t resist adding:

Still, the economy is far from the booming 1990s. Last month, 8.2 million people remained unemployed.

It’s always fun when liberals do statistics. Current unemployment rate: 5.6%. Average unemployment rate during the “booming 1990s”: 5.76%.
UPDATE: The Bush campaign has lost no time incorporating these data into a new television ad. See it here. The main statistic they’re using is 1.4 million new jobs since August. The current job creation rate is, of course, much better than that.

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