Correlation Between Gasoline Demand / Jobs; Are The Goal Posts Changing Now That The Obama Presidency Is Coming To An End? -- November 2, 2016

Updates

Later, 9:25 a.m. Central Time:

From the EIA today:

The consumption of U.S. finished motor gasoline reached a new high of 9.7 million barrels per day (b/d) in June 2016, surpassing the previous one-month high of 9.6 million b/d set in July 2007. U.S. gasoline consumption during summer 2016 (June through August) increased by 169,000 b/d, or 1.8%, relative to the same period in 2015.

The increase in gasoline consumption was slightly lower than the increase in driving, suggesting that fuel economy improvements slightly mitigated the increase. --- EIA

We didn't hit 10 million bopd but we came close.

Original Post

USA Today:

Businesses added 147,000 jobs in October, payroll processor ADP said Wednesday, possibly signaling the government this week will report a third straight month of disappointing employment gains.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected ADP to report 165,000 job gains. They forecast the Labor Department on Friday will record 175,000 new jobs in the public and private sectors in the final employment report before the election.

Last night I posted the one metric that tells me most about the US economy: gasoline demand. In light of the jobs story today, you may want to take another look at the post on gasoline demand.

Remember the magic numbers:

First time claims, unemployment benefits: 400,000 (> 400,000: economic stagnation)

New jobs: 200,000 (< 200,000 new jobs: economic stagnation)

But this is very, very interesting. Now that the Obama presidency is coming to an end, the goal posts seem to be moving again.

Forever and ever, and under the George W Bush administration, the "magic" number for new jobs was 200,000/month. That was the number of new jobs that had to be added each month to maintain economic expansion. Under 200,000: indications of economic stagnation.

Then, sometime under the Obama administration, the number was silently changed:

Economists estimate the labor market needs to create about 125,000 jobs a month to keep the unemployment rate steady, though estimates vary -- Reuters.

I stuck with the 200,000 number.

By the way, going from 200,000 to 125,000 is not trivial; that's almost cutting the 200,000 number in half.

Now, note the USA Today story today: "Businesses added 147,000 jobs in October." That's what the story says. Reuters, during the Obama administration, said only 125,000 new jobs were needed to keep the unemployment rate steady -- so 147,000 should be fine under the Obama administration.  

But now that the Obama administration is coming to a close, 147,000 jobs is apparently a really bad number.

I wonder what the number will have to be under a Hillary administration? 100,000? A Trump administration? 500,000.

Whatever.