Democrats See Signs of Hope in Job Trends

WTF?

New York Times writer Michael Luo is probably being a smart-ass. In the piece he argues that states with lots of close races this November are seeing job growth, even if unemployment overall remains near 10 percent, which is unbelievably high. (There have been three quarters of growth, but jobs aren't being created in net as states slash budgets and Europe's sovereign debt crisis keeps investors cautious.) Things could be worse. But this little opinion really bothered me:

While much attention has been paid to the nation’s stubbornly high unemployment rate, political scientists have found little correlation between that measure and midterm elections results. Instead, they have found more broad-based indicators, particularly real personal disposable per capita income, which measures the amount of money a household has after taxes and inflation, to be better gauges.

 The blog post he links to seems wrong to me. The "politcal scientist" blogger links to some left wing blogs (some I like - Talking Point Memo, Krugman, Nate Silver - some anti-Obama blogs I don't like - Lawyers, Guns and Money, Hullabaloo, Freakonomics - and some that are so-so - Eschaton.

The blogger pulls this out of his butt:

So why might income growth matter but unemployment not matter for elections? It's possible that unemployment fluctuations disproportionately affect people at the lower end of the income spectrum -- people who aren't terribly likely to vote in midterms and, if they do, are probably voting Democratic anyway. Growth in disposable income, however, affects everybody, including the moderate voters who will switch party allegiances from time to time.

It's also possible that high unemployment means low aggregate demand mean low growth which means low growth in disposable income.

High unemployment means a loose labor market. This guy just confirms my low opinion of "political scientists." I like "economists" much better and "political economists" most of all.
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NB: I've included a new label "The Dark Ages" in honor of Professor Krugman, a true Hypatia for our time. (Looking forward to seeing the Rachel Weisz movie Agora. I did see Get Him to the Greek, which has a Krugman cameo, and thought it was pretty good.) Simon Johnson believes Krugman should replace the departing Peter Orszag as budget director. Yes we can!