No sooner had the federal Department of Labor released the statistics on jobs in America in July than the Kerry campaign and its surrogates were painting it as bad news for President Bush. “The President has been talking about the economy turning the corner and bragging about new job creation, but today’s numbers show a much different reality. The so-called recovery is another mission not accomplished for the Bush administration,” said Rep. Charles Rangel, a Democrat of New York. Rep. George Miller, a Democrat of California, said called the news “dreadful” and said it “confirms the failure of the Bush administration’s economic policies.” Rep. John Spratt, a Democrat of South Carolina, called the news “dismal.”As for Senator Kerry himself, the candidate released a statement saying, “The president keeps saying we’ve turned the corner. But unfortunately, today’s job numbers further demonstrate that our economy may be taking a U-turn instead.”

Note the use of the word “may,” an auxiliary verb that, like its stablemate “might,” is fast becoming a staple of the Democratic nominee’s vocabulary. Said the candidate Thursday in Washington: “Now, might we have wound up going to war with Saddam Hussein? You bet we might have.” If even Senator Kerry isn’t confident enough to proclaim without a hedging word like “may” that our economy is taking a U-turn, why should the voters be concerned about it?

What the Labor Department said on Friday is that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for July actually improved from what it was in June. The unemployment rate for July was 5.5%, down from 5.6% in June, according to the labor department’s seasonally adjusted numbers based on a survey of American households.

That’s the lowest the unemployment rate has been since October of 2001. It is exactly what the unemployment rate was, by the way, in July of 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for re-election. It’s sharply better than the unemployment rate in July of 1984, when Ronald Reagan was running for re-election, of 7.5%.

Critics of Mr. Bush tend to focus not on the unemployment rate but on the number of jobs in America, as measured by what’s known as the “establishment survey.”The household survey calls Americans and asks them if they are working. The establishment survey calls businesses and asks them how many workers they employ. The establishment survey, too, showed job growth from June to July. By the government’s seasonally adjusted count, there were 32,000 more jobs in America in July than there were in June. In other words, according to the establishment survey, the American economy gained jobs last month rather than losing jobs. The carping from the Democrats is that there were fewer jobs created than there should be.

The establishment survey has its problems. It doesn’t include business owners, the self-employed, farm workers, or domestic workers. Even an avowed Kerry voter, Slate’s Mickey Kaus, wrote over the weekend that that flaw in the establishment survey is “glaring” and “troubling.” While the establishment survey showed the gain of 32,000 jobs in July, the household survey showed a much larger gain.

If Friday’s job report wasn’t such bad news, why did the stock market fall in reaction to it? It could be that the market is afraid Mr. Kerry might actually win the election. If he did, he’d undo Mr. Bush’s tax cuts and block the chance for reforms aimed at reining in the runaway lawsuits that hamper corporate profits.

In other words, the market knows that Mr. Kerry was being less than candid when he said Friday, “Unfortunately, today’s job numbers further demonstrate that our economy may be taking a U-turn.”Any statistic that can be painted, however misleadingly, as bad news for the American economy is good news — hardly “unfortunate” — for the Kerry campaign.

By extension, such news is even worse than it might ordinarily be for the stock market. It puts Mr. Kerry in the position of hoping for bad news about the American economy, always an awkward position for a presidential candidate.