"Just the Facts Ma'am"

Jack Webb

As is often said, there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics ... particularly when uttered by politicians.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz, (D, Florida and Chairman of the Democrat National Committee) recently justified this aphorism when she said that unemployment had not gone up under Obama (see: Schultz Spins).  So, I have gone back to my source, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to see if this were the case. The actual series (A-1) facts (see BLS.gov) are reprised below.

To update from my previous Fact Check, when The Barry took office the civilian non-institutional population (CN-IP) of the United States was 232.6 million and the seasonally-adjusted number of people employed was 142.2 million (after the shock of the sub-prime mortgage crisis in late 2008). As of the end of November, 2011, the civilian non-institutional population was 240.4 million (up 7.8 million) whereas the equivalent employment number was 140.6 million (down 1.6 million). More interestingly, the percentage of the CN-IP that had jobs when The Barry took office was 61.1%; whereas today it is 58.5% (down 2.6 percentage points.) 

Or, if the employed percentage of the CN-IP had stayed the same as when Obama took office, then this country's employed labor force would total 146.9 million jobs ... up 6.3 million jobs. To fully recover from the shock of the sub-prime mortgage crisis (a loss of 3.0 million jobs as of January, 2009), President Obama's economic cabal would have had to cause allow 9.3 million jobs to be created ... let alone give  permit us any true job growth.

So, as we used to say when I was much younger dude, Debbie Wasserman Shwartz appears to be blowing smoke up our collective arses.

Addendum:  Don't forget that, to figure the grand total job creation shortfall under Obama, you need to add his actual jobs decline of 1.6 million to the above 6.3 million normative figure to get a 7.9 million deficit ... or a 10.9 million shortfall if one factors in the sub-prime job losses under Bush (again, before any true job growth.)