Bush can’t do all that much with the new jobs number (which came in about half the consensus estimate) except to say that payroll jobs are steadily being added to the economy. He must, however, stress the historic strength of the current unemployment rate, and also point to the million-plus new jobs that have been added over the last year. Once again, however, we are seeing payroll jobs positioned by the media as a leading indicator. It is not. The unemployment rate remains the best gauge of the jobs picture — and again, it’s a handsome rate. As David Malpass has stressed on NRO Financial, “Jobs in established firms (or payroll jobs) are a deeply lagging indicator of the economy; establishment jobs were pushed to an exaggerated peak in the late 1990s and are now reverting to more normal levels.”