The millions cast ballots in the midterm elections. When they came out they told opinion researchers they were voting on the sluggish economy. But within months in january 2013 more jobs were created during the Obama Administration than in eight years under president george w. Bush. While big important things are true. Millions work at lower wages than before the recession, longterm unemployment is frighteningly high. And young minority workers are still in a bad way, still there are 6 million more jobs than when president obama took obvious, and the president is punished for the state of the economy. October is the ninth month in a row to add 200,000 jobs to the u. S. Economy, the longest period of sustained growth at that pace since 1995. 214,000 jobs were created in october. Unemployment also dropped to 5. 9 the lowest level sinc since 2008. Most positions were added in the retail, healthcare and food industries. Over all its been a good year for the american workforce. More than 2. 3 million jobs have been added to the economy this year alone. The number of those long term unemployed also fell by more than 1 Million People this year. But wages have stagnated. The average Hourly Earnings only rose by 2 this year. On paper the economy seems like its doing as well. But it appears the American Public is still not feeling confident. 45 of voters exiting the midterm polls says a better economy topped their list of concerns. That sentiment from main street led to a Republican Senate sweep and majority swap. Its time to go in a new direction. [ cheering ] i want you to know that i hear you. The day after the election president obama hinted the political punch he suffered may not have been based on facts and figures but more on feelings. All of us have to give more americans a reason to feel that the ground is table beneath their feet. That the future is secure, that there is a bath for young people to succeed, and that folks here in washington are concerned about them. William galston was on the program wednesday. I asked him where he thought the Obama Administration went wrong in the mid terms . President obama said, i think unwisely but accurately that his policies were on the ballot, and this was much more of a negative election than an affirmative election. It was a negative adjustment. It was a negative adjustment in particular on the condition of the american economy. The American People dont think that this economy is working for them. Friday the president met with congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle about breaking the gridlock. Im not going to judge ideas base open whether theyre democratic or republican, im going to judge them based on whether or not they work. The challenge for both parties lies in convincing the American People that they could be happy or happ happier. Jobs, and the way jobs influence political sentiments this time on the program. The president and his party were punished, voters said, for the job market while in wisconsin and kansas where republican governs presided over less than robust job growth scott walker and Sam Brownback were handily reelected. Joining us for that conversation, seth harris, former deputy secretary of labor. From stanford, california, neil, and paris sinclair, chief economist at, indeed, online job search database and shes also a professor of economics at georgetown university. Why dont you run us through the numbers. The high points and low points. Whats in there . The high point point is that we had another month of job throat where the Unemployment Rate came down to 5. 8 . So a lot of good news on the job side proudly spread out across industries. The problem is people are not feeling it in their lives. Thats reflected in the wage numbers that have been stagnant for an extended period of time. Decades for a lot of families. For lower wage workers, their wages have been declining, and so theyre not feeling improvement in theirs lives. Thats the story of the election. The grow domestic product job creation over all, thats not effecting peoples lives or making their lives better. People respond to what is really going on in their lives, whats really going on in their homes. And they behave in response to stimulus and messages theyre getting from the economy. What are pool using your job site doing. People are now finding job. Some of the jobs are lower wages but were seeing in the last several months that higher wage jobs are coming online. Theyre being offered and people are applying to those. It does look like this might be a turning point towards finding Higher Quality jobs going forward. This really has been the year of just getting a job, and so hopefully were looking forward towards 2015. Were now getting to a point where its getting a good job. Has there been enough good news that people feel encouraged, emboldened like maybe things are Getting Better for them . What im still watching is the rate from another Bureau Labor Statistics survey that we wont get again until next week. Thats the number that i want to see kick upwards, then well see people confidently saying this job, i took it because the economy is rough. Now ill look at it in the next coming months. Kneelneil, if if you and your family were doing okay and then pushed to the wall, but then started to return but it hasnt gotten back to where you were before, how do you form a conclusion of how are you doing . Do you compare your current state to the best of times previously or the worst of times . One thing that they always say is that the economy elect the president. And the president elects congress. Depending on how the president s Approval Rating is, and what party hes from. Its not that people are not looking at their own economic situation, but how the media frames how the country is doing as a whole. Even though the numbers look pretty good, one would tell you that the media framing is that we had a stagnant economy that was not recovering fast enough. If i ran all the stats by people who voted against democrats or felt that they were voting against the president on tuesday, that wouldnt necessarily change their vote. I couldnt prove to them that theyre right or wrong, but its a compelling idea that more jobs have been created since barack obama began his job since eight years of the bush administration, yet i doubt the first 100 people i met on k street would have any idea that thats the case. Yes, i think thats true. I think it cuts both ways on both parties. In the 1992 election, the numbers did not look so bad, yet the media framed the economy as being terrible. And people are not going to dig in to Economic Data that carefully. Theyre going to basically follow how the media frames the economy, and i think over the last few years the economy is not been framed as growing gang best urgency but its focused on the real problems that workers still face including not only stagnant wages as the secretary pointed out, but also the fact that net worth has been declining due to the housing collapse and increasing debt for opportunity loans, etc. People do not feel economically secure even though they have a job and theyre getting a paycheck. I guess coming out of professor ace remarks this is a reminder of just how bad things god. Thats exactly right. A lot of us forget that the month the president swore the oath of office, we lost 800,000 jobs in the economy. It was 700,000 or 800,000 jobs every month on either side of that for a good long time. We dug ourselves a very deep hole, and were still climbing out of the hole. Were not jumping up and down and celebrating because weve got a long way to go. You compare where we are now to where when the workers real wages were rising in the second term of president clintons presidency, and the Unemployment Rate is much higher, the number of people working part time wanting to work full time, much higher, and the participation rate, the number of people looking, much lower. There are still millions and millions and millions more people who are out of work or under employed who would like to work for, but until they go to fulltime jobs those wages are not going to go up. Tara, isp. Tara, is it that slack in the economy . That pool of ready hands thats depressing wage demands . Do you feel less secure about asking for more money because there are so many people willing to do your job . Economists are debating this issue. Its a hot topic in Research Conferences at the moment and there is much disagreement about it. My only personal interpretation of the research is that there is a lot of slack out there, and there is enough pieces of evidence between looking at the people who are parttime workers who want a fulltime job, that elevated rate, looking at the people that are out of the labor force that are still in the prime of their working years. So not just the retired baby boomers but prime age workers are not participating in the way that theyve done historically. And combine that with the weak wage growth. Putting that all together it looks like strong evidence that there is still flack in the economy and room for more improvement. Quickly before we go to a break when you look at those prime age working year numbers, do you suspect people are working but just not in a way that we cant count. Off the books work, cash only economy. Were looking at the Household Survey numbers. So it is at least catching the self employed that might be one thing that were missing from the payroll numbers. In terms of have we suddenly developed a big black economy, i dont think there is evidence of that. Well be back with more merchandise story after this short break. When we return when it comes to jobs what does a Virtuous Cycle look like . More jobs make more customers, who make more jobs. Are we at long last with unemployment below 6 finally in one . Stay with us. Youre watching inside story on Al Jazeera America. Im ray suarez. Iim not an economist, and neither is the president , but im going to guess that we have in common an understanding one reason that wages have not risen with the healing economy is that so many people remain unemployed, under employed or uncounted that employers dont have to offer higher wages to new hires or raise the wages of current workers. Why didnt he say so. Why didnt the Democratic Candidates have a heart to heart about the state of the economy with the voters . Were talking jobs and politics this time on the program. Neil, was there a coherent, thankful conversation had with the American Public about the state of the job market or the state of the economy more widely during the past nine months . No, if i had to assess the Democrat Campaign strategy, it was very poor. It didnt actually highlight not only the levels of the unemployment picture, but also the changes, as you mentioned earlier, and the changes have been very positive. Rather i think they were on the defensive, and most of the candidates within the states and gubernatorial races were trying to distance themselves as far as possible from president obama. So instead of making positive statements about the job numbers, the responses to a lot of questions were i promise im not the same thing as president obama. Which is just not a positive message for voters to take to the booth. I think thats right. Also i think democrats were in a difficult position. They know a lot of worker families are not seeing improvement in their Home Economics. They have neighbors whose houses may still be foreclosed or were foreclosed. They know people who have lost jobs. Their own wages have not gone up. They try to distract from the focus of the economy, but also the republicans didnt perform economic agenda either. There was no opportunity for a real debate. Corporate profits are up. Gdp numbers are up. You just heard seth say that that was not a great game bet for voters, but if its heading in the right direction, why arent people sharing in that prosperity . When we look at how people feel about the economy, theyre looking at their neighbors, their neighbors situation and how deeply we went down and how slowly we came up. I think its the speed of recoy coverry that normally the faster we go down, the faster we come back up and you get that bounce and we feel that recovery quickly. But i think the slugness really drug people down. But if were looking at 3. 6 gdp growth, which is for a big mature economy, pretty good year on year, but in our case in the United States its not sustaining steady job growth in a spectacular way. Just a modest bumping along kind of way. Right, right, and part that have is technology. In the long run we feel that technology will create more jobs, but in the immediate term if firms can go ahead and slowly create jobs and instead replace some of that with new technology, then we go with th that. Neil, its true what tara said, when you go to a factory now you dont see a lot of people. You see a lot of machines with a few people who are taking care of the machines. But thats reality. Thats the truth. How come political campaigns and candidates are so reluctant to talk in a realistic way to people about how we create jobs and what jobs look like in the future . It could be that we overestimate peoples ability to process what is going on. Its not like they have debates where they hash over policies for one hour. People have busy lives and paying attention to the election is something that they only do one week before the election starts. So it may be too much to ask for voters to process the information. So when we look at the economy its more of an emotional economy rather than a rational one. Well be back with more inside story in a moment. When we return a look ahead to the next election. Oh, boy, and the possibility of steady, if unspectacular job growth. Do you at some point reach Critical Mass in a way that advantages the president and his party, or with the republican takeover of the senate bus the g. O. P. Also get to take over some of the credit for Economic Growth . Stay with us. Were back with inside story. Im ray suarez. For a lot of political jumpingies wednesday was the first day of the 2016 campaign. The rest of us just have to tune in when we decide its time, but when we do, do economic impressions come from a number of factors. Still with us, seth harris, former secretary deputy of labor. From california, neil mahatra from the graduate school of business. And social professor of economics at George Washington university. Professor sinclair, yes, up until today even with the good numbers people arent feeling great, but is there and a cumulative effect from this if things keep lumbering the way they have been, are they likely to feel better . Do we fill in more of the picture by the fall of 2016 . Im really hopeful that 2015 is going to be that year when people really do start to finally feel better about the economy, that its not just, wow, thank goodness i have my job, but rather hey, i have a pretty good job, and my neighbor has a job, and now that im looking around i realize that things are really Getting Better. But its been a long time comi coming, and so whether people will really say that this is a surprising pleasing thing or just finally is really the question. And whether anybody gets credit for it. Right. Because finally doesnt make you feel like you want to go out and with regard somebody. Right, right. Neil, earlier in the program you talked about how not everybody pays close attention to the election or gambits of campaign, interesting set of stats, statewide minimum wage initiatives pass in four solid red states by thumping huge majorities and often that same night, the aim voters elected antiminimum wage hike politicians. Cant we expect them to follow at least that closely . That criticism has been levied against the voters. Minimum wage has always been an issue among the rank and file voters. There is a reason why they want to want to index the minimum wage to inflation. Tom cotton did support minimum wage increase in his race. Even though there was a disconnect between voters and how they were looking at policies and who they voted for, i wouldnt be surprised to see republicans move to the center on this issue over time as a lesson they get from these initiative results. Tom cotton, who will take senator pryors place in arkansas in january, do the effects and those feelings that weve been talking about during the whole program, sentiments about the economy, impressions of your own life, do they have a piling up affect . Would another year of numbers like weve had over the past year really finally give way to some optimism . I mean, likego ahead. Ill take that from seth, sorry. I think they will, because the Unemployment Rate is going to continue to decline. Were going to be below 5. 5 b by 2015 probably beyond that, thats going to begin to put pressure on wages and bring more part time workers to full time and bring people back into the labor market. Will you you also have to remember that in 2016 well have a different electorate than the one we had in you 2012. A lot of younger voters, single women voters who dont go to the polls in midterm elections are going to be coming to the polls, and theyre going to be more democratic and inclined towards government. And drawing heavily from the constituencies that have taken the worst whacking during the job problems. Theyve been hurt the most but theyre also the folks who are more inclined to say that government can make a difference here. Organizing can make a difference here. Thats why barack obama, even though there was frustration in 2012 around the economy was able to win the election. Thats why in 2016 the republicans were worried about a large number of seats in the senate theyve got to defend and the democratic challenger for president. Professor sinclair, as things get better do people start to think, you know, in a less hunkered down i got to worried about today, this months mortgage, this months car payment kind of way and think differently about politician because suddenly theyre thinking about their economic lives next year. And an addition on the house, maybe a new car the year after that. Do politics and Home Economics go in tandem to a certain degree . They certainly do go in tandem to a certain degree, but im not sure how hopeful getting back to a place we would have hoped we were four or five years ago is going to be enough to make people feel completely different or be that different in terms of voting the economy. They still need may be remaindering and thinking about everything that theyve experienced over the last several years. You know, matrah you wrote about how people were lied to in the campaign or told pretty much untruths and still voted for those politicians any way. Does the luxury of not having the wolf at the door make us better voters or worse ones . I think this general question if we keep getting an improved economy will the election be impacted. Voters only take in the Third Quarter of the year of their election year. Barack obama was lucky i luck there was positive growth. I leave it up to the economists to show what q 3 will look lake. But thats not a great way to decide democracy because then its a game of Musical Chairs where just a just looking at one quarter. Memory know to election makers, put the economy on a sugar high. If we look at the nixon tapes, for example, there is evidence that nixon had placed pressure on the Federal Reserve to boost the economy right before the 1972 direction, for example. Neil mahatra, thank you all for being with us on the program. The program may be over but the conversation continues. We want to hear what you think about the issues raised on this or any days program. Log on to our Facebook Page and see where people are writing about the economics where they live. Give us thoughts on twitter. Our handle is aj inside story a. M. Or reach me and follow me on ray suarez news. Well see you for the next inside story in washington. Im ray suarez. Coming up at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on Al Jazeera America more american troops are headed to iraq. Officials say they will not be involved in combat. Well get the latest on their mission and the wider efforts to take on isil. After a day in limbo a judge has signed off on a plan to take a city out of bankruptcy, and as tensions in the middle east heat up again we look at history and the politics behind the latest flareup on violence. Those stories and much more coming up tonight on Al Jazeera America at 6 00. From now on, it will be different than the one we were chasing in the past. We have to adapt to it. Carlos helped restrushing nissan pulling it out of near bankruptcy and transforming it into a company with more than 100,000,000,000 in a one of a kind collatration, he not only heads nissa. He also leads renaut. There was no other model like this