Report credits 'job security' for falling jobless claims; the workers hand Trump his lowest economic marks yet.

…(cont) September 23rd. Two days later. The Hill's business letter, rural voters this time, the ones who'd stood by him, chipping away, they said, over the cost of things. Not a number I wrote down that day, just the word "chipping." I remember thinking that's a strange word for a poll.

September 24th. Emerson College, a Wednesday I think, had him at 58 percent disapproval, 39 approval. Worst of the second term, they said. I checked that one twice because the numbers from the 21st and the 24th don't agree with each other exactly, and I don't know why, and nobody's explained it to me, and I'm not going to pretend I know.

Then October 1st. Same day, two slips.

The first one says claims for unemployment benefits dropped to 197,000, lowest since the middle of July, and they credited it — this is their word, not mine, I wrote it down because I wanted to get it right — to "job security." Most American workers, they said, enjoy it.

The second slip, same date, same Thursday: the AP-NORC survey, published that morning, found 65 percent of U.S. adults blame the president's policies for high prices, more than any other reason they were offered. New low on the approval number. I only need that figure once and then I'm done with it, I promise.

I drove over to the corner store for cigars that afternoon, the good kind I can't really afford, and the car needed a minute, the way it does, before it turned over. Ramon's behind the counter. I put both slips down next to the register while he rang me up — the claims number on the left, the approval number on the right, like a man laying out two hands of cards he already knows don't match.

Does "job security" mean the same thing to the agency that counts the claims as it means to the adults who answered that AP-NORC survey the same week, the ones who blamed the president's policies for what things cost? I don't know. I can't answer that one. That's not false modesty. I really can't.

Ramon rang me up, I paid, I turned to go.

"Hey — before you go." He had the receipt tape still in his hand, the long curl of it. "That word they used. Security." He tapped the left slip. "That's the same week as this one." He tapped the right. "Same Thursday. You sure that's the word they want?"

I didn't have an answer for him either. I still don't. I just wrote it down.