This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The answer to the question in this blog headline tends to be in the eye of the beholder.

But, while inflation is on the rise, if due, at least in part, to the Russian-Ukraine war, unemployment is at an historic low.

The way the U.S. Department of Labor puts it:  “Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 431,000 in March, and the unemployment rate declined to 3.6 per cent.  Notable job gains continued in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade, and manufacturing.”

At the same time, the fact that prices are on the rise carries implications for all of those in power, including President Joe Biden, as well as Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

If it is true that election campaigns often are won or lost on the basis of this phrase – “it’s the economy, stupid” – then no one knows how things will play out in the coming mid-term elections.

Still, I have always thought – and continue to think – that “the jobs” issue is a solid plank on which to develop a platform and a campaign.  Too often, I think the “jobs issue” is relegated to the back-burner.

Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan showed up a few days with a column that appeared under this headline:  “The media is failing the public on the good news about jobs.”

She added:

“The job market is great right now. If people think it’s the opposite, some part of the blame falls on us.

“The unemployment rate is at an encouragingly low point.  Less than 4 per cent of the labor force is actively seeking work.  And the latest monthly Labor Department report showed another healthy spike in the number of new jobs — they’ve been steadily on the rise for many months in a row.

“But if you ask regular Americans about the jobs climate, a surprising number of them seem to think the opposite is true.  One recent poll found that more respondents have it completely backward:  37 per cent of the public assumes that jobs were actually lost over the past year; only 28 per cent realized, correctly, there had been a gain.  Among Republicans, the false belief is worse; nearly half believe jobs were lost.

“This lack of knowledge matters.  Political fortunes rise and fall in part on the health of the job market.  As the Clinton 1992 campaign staff kept reminding themselves when gauging how to communicate with voters, ‘it’s the economy, stupid.’”

So, whose fault is it, Sullivan wonders. 

Three possibilities:

• Is it people who can’t be bothered to pay attention to the news, let alone the world around them?
• Or, is it that a robust job market paradoxically can feel like something negative to ‘secure Americans,’ including bosses and managers.
• Or, have some persons fallen for the spiel of partisan Republicans who want to deny any good news emerging from the Biden era.

Or, Sullivan asks, does part of the blame fall squarely on the news media for not delivering the news in a way that everyone can easily absorb?

Though all of the above could be true, Sullivan believes the public’s lack of knowledge on jobs ought to sound an alarm bell for journalists.

“It should be a wake-up call,” Tom Rosenstiel, a professor at the University of Maryland’s journalism school and formerly the executive director of the American Press Institute, told Sullivan.  “The lack of understanding is not entirely the media’s fault, but it should be their concern.”

Sullivan offers three suggestions for the media:

• First, find some balance in the current economic coverage, which has pounded away relentlessly at soaring inflation, but mentioned job growth or wage increases only in passing.  

To be sure, inflation is a major and legitimate concern, particularly because of the high cost of putting food on the table and gas in the car or truck.  But high costs also are a particularly easy story for TV news to do.  The visuals — gas station price signs, for example — are there for the taking.  The jobs story may be less immediate and compelling, but it is also important.

• Second, examine the knee-jerk media narrative, which goes like this: Biden’s approval numbers are down, and that’s because the economy is bad.  That framing has been relentless, and it is self-fulfilling.  It’s all part of the horse-race coverage that journalists are addicted to but that doesn’t serve the public.
• And third, cover all aspects of the new world of work more rigorously and more creatively.  At many news organizations, the traditional labor beat was dismantled years ago.  It should be brought back in re-invented form with attention paid to the gig economy, working from home, the burgeoning unionization movement and more.

Sullivan concludes with an admonition for the media – a solid admonition, I add, as a former newspaper reporter:  Do a better job of reporting economic issues and trends, including low unemployment, and do so in a way that has the potential to resonate with readers, hearers and viewers.