Monday, September 10, 2012

Un-Spinning Jobs Numbers (America Thinker)


September 10, 2012

By Randall Hoven
I detect some confusion in the electorate regarding jobs numbers. Obama claims he created 4.5 million private-sector jobs. His critics claim he lost 4 million. Are we better off than four years ago? Fact-checkers, shockingly, aren't helping us sort this out very well. So let me try.

Usually, the numbers you hear are technically correct -- they would pass a raw fact check. But the numbers are not comparable apples-to-apples and not necessarily meaningful. It all depends on your starting point and what you are really comparing.

Look at this chart, which is the total number of private sector jobs over the last five years.

Source: St. Louis Fed, FRED series USPRIV.

Your choice of starting point obviously makes a big difference, since the economy lost 8.9 million private-sector jobs in two years. The table below shows the various answers you would get, depending on how you define things.


Total Non-Farm Jobs

Private-Sector Jobs

From last peak (Jan '08)

-4.7 million

-4.2 million

Four years ago (Sep '08)

-3.0 million

-2.4 million

Inauguration (Jan '09)

-261 thousand

+415 thousand

From trough (Feb '10)

+4.1 million

+4.6 million

It shouldn't take a genius to figure out why the White House likes to count (a) private-sector jobs and (b) only since hitting bottom in February 2010 (the "last 30 months," at this point). That is the largest positive number in the above table. It's as simple as that.

Obama uses a cute trick: if you start counting from only once things started getting better, then things got better. And things always got better at some point after every U.S. recession in history.

What is "right"? That's a very good question. I always prefer to compare apples to apples. How does Obama's recovery compare to other recoveries?

Let's give Obama the benefit of the doubt and start counting at the low point in private-sector jobs. After all, that is how he is doing it. How does his 30-month-post-trough pace compare to other recessions?

Date of trough in private sector jobs

President during next 30 months

Net increase in private sector jobs (millions)

Percentage increase

Oct 1949

Truman

+4.97

+13.5%

Aug 1954

Ike

+3.52

+8.4

Jun 1958

Ike

+2.16

+5.0

Feb 1961

JFK/LBJ

+2.57

+5.7

Nov 1970

Nixon

+5.25

+9.1

Jun 1975

Ford/Carter

+7.14

+11.6

Jul 1980

Carter/Reagan

-0.46

-0.6

Dec 1982

Reagan

+8.16

+11.2

Feb 1992

Bush 41/Clinton

+5.94

+6.6

Jul 2003

Bush 43

+5.02

+4.6

Feb 2010

Obama

+4.63

+4.3

In my opinion, the right-most column represents the fairest comparison. We are using the same measure Obama uses: private-sector job increases over the 30 months from the low point associated with a recession. And since the number of total private jobs varied from 37 to 115 million over those years, a percentage change is a more fair comparison than absolute numbers.

So how does Obama stack up against other recession-recovery presidents? The worst except for Jimmy Carter. That's because, in Carter's case, a second recession started within that 30-month window.

(In Jimmy's defense, he holds the all-time record for private-sector jobs created within any 30-month window: 8.7 million in his first 30 months in office. That is even better than Reagan's 8.3 million after his tax cut in 1983. The best 30-month window under Clinton was 7.3 million. Obama is bragging about a number that is barely half of Carter's.)

Even in absolute numbers, Obama's 4.6 million is worse than the recoveries under Bush 43, Bush 41, Reagan, Ford, Nixon, and Truman.

There is a reason this is called the worst "recovery" in history. And, by the way, we haven't recovered yet.

Since World War II, we have averaged a recession about every 6 years (in fact, every 69 months). If you define "complete recovery" as exceeding the number of private-sector jobs prior to the recession, we have "completely recovered" from all post-war recessions except one -- this one.

In all post-war recessions prior to 1990, private-sector jobs recovered within 27 months or less of the pre-recession peak. The two Bush recoveries took longer: 36 and 54 months, respectively. In Obama's case, we are 55 months away from the pre-recession peak in private-sector jobs, and counting. And we have another 4.2 million jobs to go! At the current pace, it will take 82 months to "completely recover."

As you can see in the chart below, most recessions form a "V" in terms of private sector jobs. That is, the jobs came back about as quickly as they went away. In 9 of the 10 previous pre-war recessions, private jobs had completely recovered within 14 months of bottoming out. In the 10th recession (Bush 43's recovery), complete recovery was 23 months post-trough.

But look at the last recession in this chart, Obama's recovery. It is the only one that is not roughly symmetric. The recovery is much slower than the decline. We're at 30 months post-trough, and nowhere near complete recovery. The pace of this recovery is the slowest of all post-war recessions.

At our current pace, we should be completely recovered by the end of 2014. If so, that would be the longest time to recover from a recession in our history. And that's if we're lucky. The last recession started in December 2007. If averages hold up, the next one will start in 2013.

It's possible, even likely, that this will be the first time in history that another recession starts before private-sector jobs completely recover from the last.

Randall Hoven can be followed on Twitter.

(Related: "The Truth About the Unemployment Rate in 2 Graphs")


Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/09/un-spinning_jobs_numbers.html at September 10, 2012 - 07:55:24 AM CDT

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

forget the graphs and all nonsense about them. there are alomost 80 million americans out of work. the percenatge by any real standard is between 18 and 20%. obama wants to increase that number. the more people who are depended on government the more votes he thinks he will get. the same rule applies to canada. there are about 60% of those who vote in this country who want everything for nothing. they do not realize that government produces nothing but debt. fools all. if these stupid robot things get any harder there will be no comments. i see there a none now except mine.

Anonymous said...

forget the graphs and all nonsense about them. there are alomost 80 million americans out of work. the percenatge by any real standard is between 18 and 20%. obama wants to increase that number. the more people who are depended on government the more votes he thinks he will get. the same rule applies to canada. there are about 60% of those who vote in this country who want everything for nothing. they do not realize that government produces nothing but debt. fools all. if these stupid robot things get any harder there will be no comments. i see there a none now except mine.

bertie said...

Finally I get to agree with an anon.Everything for nothing is Democratic & Lib?Ndp campaign song.

Every thing for nothing
You don't have to do a thing
Just get up in the morning
And give your democrats a ring

Don't have no more food
Not to worry we will feed you
Don,t have place to stay
Not to worry we will house you.

You don't have to do anything
but vote LIB?NDP/Democrat if you can
Just come on down every 4 years
and put your x beside the man

CHORUS..Sing it loud

Everything for nothing
I don't have to do a thing
Just get up in the morning
and give my Democrats a ring

AND I DON'T HAVE TO DO A THING

Tears are coming to my eyes