Zero

Max Fraad Wolff writes at The Huffington Post:

For the second time in monthly jobs report history we have created no new jobs. The last time we created no jobs in a month was 1945. We saw downward revisions to the June and July 2011 numbers as well; erasing 56,000 previously reported job gains. Local government employment continued to fall, losing 20,000 jobs in August. Of the local job losses 13,700 were in education. We have now lost550,000 local public sector jobs over the last 3 years. The broad U-6 measure of unemployment rose to 16.2% in August. This measure includes people who have stopped looking and who are involuntarily part time.

Michael D. Shear writes in The New York Times:

It took the Republican National Committee exactly 94 minutes to coin a new, demeaning title for Barack Obama: President Zero.

In an e-mail to reporters, the committee took note of the worst jobs report in nearly a year, saying that there has been “two and a half years of Obamanomics and nothing to show for it.”

The monthly report, which showed a 17,000-job gain among private employers but no growth over all, provides Mr. Obama’s Republican rivals with the perfect opportunity to criticize him as they prepare to gather for another nationally televised debate next week.