The April Jobs Report

White House photo/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4584730908/">Pete Souza</a> (<a href="http://www`.usa.gov/copyright.shtml">Government Work</a>)

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There’s a lot to be pleased with in April’s jobs report. The economy gained 290,000 jobs, the biggest increase in four years. And although the official unemployment rate went up (from 9.7 to 9.9 percent), that’s because some 805,000 people, feeling better about their prospects, resumed searching for work. President Barack Obama called the report “very encouraging news.” Paul Krugman says the report is “good” but then proceeds to rain all over Obama’s parade:

But a long, long way to go. Two things worth remembering. First, during the Clinton years the economy added around 230,000 jobs a month on average — that is, over an eight-year period. One month like this isn’t much. Second, on a reasonable estimate it would take something like 4 or 5 years of job growth at this rate to restore anything resembling full employment.

When you put it that way, the report doesn’t actually seem so encouraging. There are still a ton of people out there looking for work. One broader measure of unemployment, “U6,” which counts people who have stopped looking or are working part-time involuntarily, is at 17.1 percent. That number is going to have to come down if Democrats don’t want to get clobbered in November (and if Barack Obama wants to get reelected).

While Republicans will try to keep Americans focused on the unemployment rate, Dems will want voters to focus on Steve Benen‘s now-famous chart of jobs numbers:

In case it isn’t clear, the chart shows job gains and losses during the Bush (red) and Obama (blue) administrations. It’s powerful stuff. Unfortunately for Democrats, people are much more likely to focus on their own situations than on a pretty bar graph. Today’s job news was good. But it’s going to have to get a lot better to dig us out of the hole we’re in:Obama often says that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Will the arc of the jobs universe keep bending towards full employment? Obama and his party had better hope so.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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