Final work report before the presidential election here. The number of employed persons in September increased by 661,000 from August, and the unemployment rate fell to 7.9%.This is a small but not a big improvement In the last month, The unemployment rate at that time was 8.4%. (Compare the 0.5 percentage point decrease in this report with the 1.8 percentage point decrease between July and August.)

Therefore, before the fall, the employment situation is better than in spring and summer, but the recovery has also slowed down significantly. The election is less than five weeks away. How much will this affect the chances of President Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden?

Even in a normal year, our election analysis will See work report As Just one of many economic indicators. But this year is weirder than usual, because the report has some element of the Rorschach test-people with different political leanings can see what they want to see.

Historically, the employment report issued shortly before the election has always been a reasonable indicator of the working methods of the incumbent party, although the latest employment report for that cycle may not be the most reliable.In the 18 presidential elections since 1948, the unemployment rate in September before the election Rarely relevant It is far from the final popular vote of the incumbent party. However, when you compare the September figures with the previous months (especially the first 6 to 12 months), you are traditionally more predictive of the current party’s election success. (Although if you look at unemployment too far outside this window, the correlation will disappear.)

This shows that voters are most concerned about the trend of the unemployment rate in the six months to one year before the election, and will provide the current party with credit or responsibility for this trend.

Under normal circumstances, all this is fine. But, of course, 2020 is still far from normal. What the current economic situation means for Trump is unclear. In absolute terms, the unemployment situation seems to be terrible for the incumbents; the 7.9% unemployment rate in September was the highest election since at least 1948. (7.8% in September 2012.) But the situation could be worse-the situation has been improving steadily over the past few months, and the unemployment rate in September was lower than 6.8 percentage points. In April. So even if you look at these numbers in a vacuum, it might be bad, but the fact that the unemployment trend is moving in the right direction is good news for Trump.

These different explanations may be why Americans with different political backgrounds have very different views on the economy. According to Civiqs polls, In the early days of the pandemic, fleeting Such In terms of how to look at the economy, there is a huge gap between Republicans and Democrats. But since then, the gap has widened greatly. A poll conducted at the end of September found that 80% of Republicans believed that the economic situation was at least quite good, while only 8% of Democrats believed that.

This disharmony may be related to two completely different ways of looking at the current employment situation: Are you concerned about the absolute level of unemployment? Or do you stick to the trends of the past few months? Depending on the lens you choose, you are looking for a completely different economy. If you only look at the past three or four work reports, the country seems to be moving steadily towards economic recovery. If you look at the changes in the past year, the unemployment rate still appears disastrously high.

The problem is that these two statements are wrong, to be precise-indeed workers are returning to work. Much faster than economists initially expected, with Indeed, tens of millions of Americans are still unemployed. But in general, this does not convey a very clear political message, which is why Republicans and Democrats can view this employment report separately, and see good news for their candidates, and for their The opponent sees bad news.

“Republicans are observing the changes month by month and saying: “We are creating millions of jobs every month; we are getting the economy back on track,” “Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at the job site Glassdoor )Say. “The person on the left said:’There are still millions of Americans unemployed, and our employment levels in April, May and June had a Great Depression.” Both parties will take this latest work report in any direction. Can benefit them to the greatest extent, which may make historical comparison irrelevant.

What makes matters even more difficult to explain is that unemployment is only one of many factors to consider when assessing the economic situation of a country that is about to enter a general election.

in Our election prediction model, Wage work Be included As part of the economic outlook that contributes to the overall forecast. However, we have also included many other economic indicators, some of which are currently moving in the opposite direction.

That’s because this is a Really weird recession: Millions of people are unemployed, but Savings with income The increase that lasted for several months was at least partly due to the federal government’s supplementary checks on unemployment.Has disappeared now, but Expenses still rose a lot Even if income has declined.with Don’t even talk to us about the stock marketDespite the impact of other economic turmoil, it rebounded this summer.

Therefore, from the perspective of the election model, the economic situation has improved since June, and we are basically at an average economic level-even with employment opportunities Still bad In a historical sense.

According to Nick Bunker, director of North American economic research at Indeed Hiring Lab, a job-recruitment website Indeed, the final wrinkle is that the situation may still change from now to election day.This year, the October employment report will be released for three days Rear election. (To be clear: the Federal Agency for Labor Statistics, which produces employment reports, Didn’t do this deliberately. ) Bunker said: “In a normal year, you would not expect the economy to change drastically in a month and a half.” But in the next five weeks, everything is possible.Given that some voters Already voting, If anything changes in October, it means that Americans who voted earlier on November 3 may choose the president in a completely different economic reality.

All this means that it is not yet clear whether the job report will help or hurt any candidate. In the end, this may be just a wash. after all, Few voters hesitate. Moreover, this report may remind people more than anything else why Republicans and Democrats may view the economy in completely different ways.