Employment Leadership

Picture from the Powerline Blog

I just heard Obama brag that his administration has created 4.5 million jobs in the last 29 months and 1.5 million jobs since the beginning of the year.  Balderdash!

As it turns out the U.S. economy has created only 3.2 million net jobs (not 4.5 million) since January of 2010 (a little over 29 months ago) while, at the same time, our population  has grown by 5.5 million ... and 4.4 million people have stopped looking for jobs (left the labor force). 

Year-to-date, these numbers show job growth of 583 thousand (not 1.5 million) while our population has grown by 1.1 milliom and 466 thousand people have left the labor force. 

And just in the last month, these statistics show that the U.S. economy has lost 195 thousand net jobs (NOT growth of 163,000 as widely reported ... quite disturbing) while, at the same time, our population has grown by 199 thousand ... and 348 thousand people have stopped looking for jobs.  And this drop in the number of those seeking jobs is the only way that our current unemployment rate isnot higher than 8.3%.

But even more damning are the numbers since Obama took office (January, 2009).  Since then, the U.S. economy has created only 2.3 million net jobs while, at the same time, our population  has grown by 7.6 million people ... and 6.7 million people have left the labor force.  If the U.S. labor force participation rate was the same today as it was in January, 2009 (65.4%), then our unemployment rate would be a more revealing 10.6%!

As always, I get this data from the CPS Tables and by clicking on the HTML version of the A-1 table under Monthly Household Data.  (If you question the veracity of my above assessments, please go to this site and see for yourself.)