Last week’s news that unemployment dropped to 7.8 percent prompted a form of schizophrenia among some conservatives who asserted that the numbers weren’t that good, and also that they had been fabricated to help President Obama.

Former GE chairman Jack Welch claimed Obama’s team had somehow cooked the books. His proof? Welch said he talks with a lot of business leaders, and they tell him they aren’t hiring.

Turns out there’s a reason for that. There are two surveys that contribute to a jobs report like Friday’s. One includes businesses, the kind of people Welch talks with. It showed meager growth, 114,000 sector jobs, in line with an economy that’s slogging along.

The other is a survey of households, the kind of people Welch does not talk with, unless they are 20-bedroom households.

The good news: This one showed more people looking for work, a good sign, and more people finding work. The bad news: It was mostly part-time work.

Conservatives are right to question the strength of the recovery in the private sector. The jobs generated are barely enough to keep the tepid recovery above water.

Jobs are concentrated in low-wage areas like retail and hospitality, or the bottom rungs of health care.

This is part of a bigger, knottier picture: Many economists no longer believe our slow growth and sticky unemployment problem are part of a business cycle.

They believe we have major structural problems in our economy — obstacles that will make it tougher to add jobs down the road, and that will keep the number of unemployed and underemployed at 23 million, unacceptably high.

Our problems are new, and vexing, and our presidential candidates have offered little creative thinking here. In last week’s debates, both candidates had 15 minutes to talk about jobs, and we heard no new ideas — moderator Jim Lehrer wasn’t the only one asleep. Old ideas — about tax cuts, training, trade deals — don’t match up with our new problems.

 

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