February 18, 2004
Bush Officials Offer Cautions on White House Jobs Forecast
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
RICHLAND, Wash., Feb. 17 — Treasury Secretary John W. Snow distanced himself on Tuesday from the Bush administration's official prediction that the nation would add 2.6 million jobs by the end of this year.
That prediction, which is far more optimistic than that of many private sector forecasters, was part of the annual economic report released last week by the White House Council of Economic Advisers and was immediately echoed by Mr. Bush himself.
But on a tour through Washington and Oregon to promote the president's economic agenda, Mr. Snow and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans both declined to endorse the White House prediction and cautioned that it was based on economic assumptions that have an inherent margin of error.
"I think we are going to create a lot of jobs; how many I don't know," Mr. Snow said, adding that "macroeconomic models are based on a lot of assumptions" and are "not without a range of error."
Unemployment and the nation's surprisingly sluggish pace of job creation has become a significant political weakness for Mr. Bush, who is on track to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to end his first term with fewer jobs than when he started.