The US economy added 96,000 jobs in August according to this month's Jobs Report, signaling a continued stagnation in the economic recovery. The relatively weak gain signaled that unemployment numbers are likely to remain high, according to economist Chad Stone at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who recommends policymakers should extend federal stimulus policies including extending federal unemployment insurance (UI) benefits beyond the end of the year.
According to the overall disappointing report, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday, the unemployment rate continued to decline, as it dipped to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent; however, the dip is contributed to a larger amount of people dropping out of the job search, and thus not registering as unemployed.
In addition, it was discovered that 41,000 fewer jobs were actually created in June and July than first estimated, revealing low job numbers have remained consistent over the summer.
The Federal Reserve will be meeting next week in order to determine which actions should now be taken in order to curb the ongoing recession -- what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is calling a "grave concern."
Chad Stone at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities offered some insights:
"The economy would benefit from more monetary stimulus from the Fed or fiscal stimulus from Congress to boost economic growth, but whether the Fed will act in response to today’s jobs report remains uncertain and Congress shows no inclination to enact further fiscal stimulus this year." [...]
"If the nation were recovering from a normal recession in which unemployment peaked around 8 percent, 30 straight months of private-sector job growth and a roughly two percentage point drop in unemployment would represent a solid improvement that justified ending federal UI. The Great Recession, however, produced such a large jobs deficit and high unemployment that the labor market is still in far from good health, and emergency federal UI still has an important role to play in supporting unemployed workers and their families and the economy beyond the end of this year.'