Justin Wolfers: ‘I’m Going to Defend Kevin Hassett’ Over Explanation for Weak Jobs Numbers

RUSH EXCERPT:

WOLFERS: “Okay, so now you forced me into a corner. I’m going to defend Kevin Hassett. Yeah, this is very uncomfortable for me. Here’s what happened. We actually had a decline in local government jobs. When you look inside that it’s local government education, which is to say teachers. Now you and I know a whole lot of teachers are on 9 or 10 month contracts, right? What we do is we typically seasonally adjust the numbers to try to even out those bumps and adjust for the usual seasonal ups and downs. But in a month like July, if the school year rang long, for instance, if there was extra snow days, it’s more likely than not that if something funny is happening with teachers in July, it’s probably a glitch in seasonal adjustment. So the line that he said, it’s all just government. He does say that over and over, but I think this month what he meant to say was it all that some”