I think this is the most unreported economic story of the month. Amazingness points to Rachel Maddow for pointing out. And I think Rachel Maddow and staff got from a blogger whose been charting the numbers.
It's called the Bikini Graph, and it charts jobs loss/growth over the last few years, month by month. There are no great pictures available on the net that I could find, so I took the liberty of taking this one from the Rachel Maddow blog itself, a still from her April 2nd broadcast.
If you're an economist tracking the economy, this is a pretty great trend. Nevermind that the unemployment rate is still 10%. Not that it's not important, but the unemployment rate is calculated based on the number of job seekers. In a long recession, people give up searching and leave the rolls. They come back when they become more optimistic. So that number is likely to go up for a couple of months. But look at the action on that chart. The peak of job loss was back in December of 2008, the last month of the Bush Administration. Numbers have gone from terrible to bad, to good. And the fact that there is a long tail on the improvement, indicates to me that it's a pretty solid trend. One that could go all pearshaped if the Dems don't hold the House and Senate.
But I'm no economist. Yet. The simple fact is that the mid-terms will depend in part on how American's view the economy. And as Sarah Palin said to mock Obama, I think this provides ample evidence that "that hopey-changey-thing" is working out for us. More people have got to see this... So take this picture, or a better one if you can find it, and post away.
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