November 23, 2011 07:37 PM UTC

Stuff's Trying To Get Better

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• by: Colorado Pols

The AP reports via the Durango Herald:

Unemployment in Colorado dropped slightly in October as the state added 8,800 new jobs.

The state’s unemployment rate declined two-tenths of a percentage point to 8.1 percent in October, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment reported Tuesday. All but 900 of the new jobs added were in the private sector, mainly in professional and businesses services, leisure and construction…

Colorado lost 151,000 jobs between April 2008 and January 2010, said the department’s chief economist, Alexandra Hall. Since January 2010, the state has added about 44,000 jobs, less than a third of what was lost, but more than 30,000 of those jobs have been added in 2011.

“That means we’re building momentum,” Hall said.

Although Colorado’s unemployment rate remains below the also-declining national rate of 9%, the survey notes another federal measurement that shows the rate of unemployment factoring those who have stopped looking for work or are part-time and looking for full-time work over 15%–again below the national average, but definitely an indicator of a long way to go. Still, good news is good news, and with something as psychology-driven as economics, good news (or bad news, for that matter) tends to compound and self-reinforce–producing more good news.

And then you wake up and realize it’s morning in America.

Reports of bad economic news, in our experience, elicit a lot more press releases and commentary. It’s a persistent mystery to us why bad economic news gets more play than good news, especially when good news can have that aforementioned self-reinforcing positive effect.

Politics, we guess.