The Stimulus, The Budget, Employment, and the Election: Conservatives Are Lying Their Asses Off, Obama Is Doing Great, And Here Are the Numbers to Prove It
To hear Republicans talk about it, Obama has done nothing about the economy, has not created any jobs, has busted the budget with unprecedented spending, and is responsible for the unemployment rate being what it is. The stimulus, they maintain, is a failure, and the people are suffering because of Obama’s inaction.
The problem with these accusations is that they are all one-hundred-percent, Grade-A horse shit. Bush wrecked the economy, and Obama and the Democrats, despite massive Republican obstructionism, have managed to pull off a minor miracle. And here are the numbers to prove it.
Before on this blog, I have refuted the claim about the stimulus’ failure; the numbers speak volumes–here’s a chart I published six months back:
With no other notable effect acting on jobs other than the stimulus, it would take huge leaps of legerdemain to explain the turnaround seen here in any other way than to recognize the stimulus as successful. As a result, Republicans simply ignore it, acting as if pulling the country out of a deep hole–their deep hole–is meaningless because the Democrats haven’t made the economy rocket into the sky yet. And sadly, Democrats–who should be plastering this chart up everywhere in sight–are letting their best advertising slip away as the conservative narrative takes hold.
Yes, the surge in jobs and/or the halt in layoffs sputtered soon after I made this chart, and since then the numbers have hovered below zero. However, this is pretty much what was predicted back in early 2009 by those who said the stimulus, as finally passed, wasn’t enough–they were 100% spot-on correct–and let’s not ignore the fact that we are substantially better off now than we were when Bush left office.
Now, how about the budget? That’s another GOP talking point–that things were going OK under Bush, at least tolerably well–but then Obama came in an exploded spending and the deficit. Let’s explode that lie, shall we? Here’s a chart [source data] showing expenditures and receipts over the past six years:
Ouch. Sure enough, deficits have exploded, and spending is up. Yes, spending is more of a straight line, but it’s not supported by revenue. Looks like under Bush, the deficit was under control, and then recently, under Obama, things have gotten out of hand.
Until, of course, you draw a precise line showing when Bush left and Obama took over:
What do you know. The deficit exploded under Bush, not Obama; Obama has been holding relatively steady. His spending is increasing at about the same rate it was under Bush. Also notice that the deficit is not that much greater now than it was when Obama took over–the arrows show the deficit when the transition occurred, laid over the latest numbers and a year before Bush left office. Obama, it turns out, has not really added much at all relative to what he was given. In contrast, Bush more than doubled the deficit in his last year in office.
So much for the “Obama and the Democrats have wrecked the budget” lie. Not to mention that soon after Obama came in to office and deployed the stimulus, the recession ended and government receipts started trending upward again. How about that.
Another tack taken by the Republicans is the unemployment rate; their claim is that since the stimulus did not take the rate down to the optimistic projections of the Obama administration, Obama therefore owns the unemployment rate–he is, they say, responsible for it.
But let’s take a look at that chart over time as well–red represents Bush months, blue for Obama:
Despite the fact that the trend and momentum started and gained steam fully under Bush, it doesn’t look too great for Obama here–when he came in, the rate was just under 8%, then it went up to 10%, and now is hovering between 9% and 10%. Republicans have picked up on this, adding fuel to their criticisms.
One problem: the unemployment rate lags behind improvements in the economy, usually by about three quarters. Apply that to the chart, and you get this:
Seen this way, one finds that not only was Obama not responsible for the 10%, he has actually lowered unemployment since he got into office. This would not be a surprise to anyone aware of the job trends since the stimulus began. Of course, this doesn’t make things all rosy–we’re still in a bad place, and slightly better than catastrophic is still terrible.
However, that’s why the unemployment rate seemed to go the opposite direction of the job surge: not only were we delayed by nine months or so, but in addition to that, we spent a year in negative territory–despite the fact that things were getting way, way better, we were still losing jobs up until late ’09. Thus the reversal in unemployment trends has been tepid so far.
So, let’s pause for a quick review: Conservatives say the stimulus is a failure. The facts say it was a resounding success, reversing the horrific nosedive that Bush had put us in. Conservatives say that Obama exploded spending and destroyed the budget. The facts show that Bush did all of that, and under Obama, spending has increased at the same general rate it did under Bush, but deficit increases have slowed greatly. Conservatives say that Obama made unemployment rise to 10% and hasn’t done a thing to change that. The facts say that Bush drove unemployment up, and that Obama stopped the trend and has slowly been wrestling the number down.
The difference is like night and day–Bush wrecked the economy, Obama has been bringing it back under control. And now Republicans are trying to blame the guy who has been helping for all the damage that Republicans wrought on the economy.
OK, back to the unemployment numbers, and where they will go. Now, the stimulus surge came to an end after May, the month in which we gained about 430,000 jobs. There was a 4-month period from February to May when the surge continued upwards, and then things went dead from June, since which time we’ve lost roughly 100,000 jobs a month.
If unemployment lags as predicted, this will be bad timing for the Democrats, and very good for Republicans: if they win the House in November, it will probably be to news that unemployment is dipping, a trend that should continue until early 2011. They would, of course, attempt to take full credit for the change, acting as if it were the euphoria over their election wins and the expectation that they would pass tax cuts for the wealthy that spurred the gains–despite the fact that it would be the tail end of the stimulus and the special employment due to the census. Even more ironically, the trend would have continued far upwards and might even have taken us out of our dire economic straits had not the Republicans cut the stimulus down to well below what it should have been.
Nor would I be surprised if (a) the downturn in unemployment ends somewhere around February or March 2011, and (b) Republicans attempt to blame it on the Democrats for not going along with all the crap they will try to ram through the House the moment they have the gavel.
I don’t have a sterling reputation for political and economic prognostication, though, so let’s see how this plays out. In the meantime, it looks like Americans are blaming the bad economy on those who have done a good job repairing it so far, and are set to hand over power to the party that caused the worst of it and has hampered the recovery. You get what you deserve. Too bad about all the people who you’re dragging down with you.
typo alert: “this will be bed timing for the Democrats”
The stimulus was also poorly structured with a lot going to blind tax cuts to people who already own too much of the economy.
Capacity utilization shows that we’re only back to the depths of the 2001 recession now.
Then again it’s hard to just dump $900B on an economy in a matter of months. The Obama team have also slow-played the roll-out of what new projects the stimulus could fund, given the screwed up politics of the situation they were not going to risk launching any program that could be demagogued as wasteful or otherwise bad.
This is the chart CMDEBT is what I try to get the Geoffs of the world to understand. The 2000-2002 growth rate was unsustainable, but the 2002-2006 was largely a bubble economy feeding itself through highly unsustainable new debt issue via the home ATM and specuvesting in real estate liberating the temporary bubble asset valuations into cash/debt pairs.
The cash has gone to cash heaven (stronger hands) but the debt certainly remains.
The unsustainability of the Bush Economy can be seen in the big picture of the above graph:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CMDEBT
If the mid-late 90s trends were held to, we should have a ~$10T CMDEBT burden instead of the $14T hole we’ve dug for ourselves.
If the CMDEBT curve could keep going up like it was during the Bush Boom, we wouldn’t have had any recession, but that would require the total debt to be around $17T today. Given the lack of access to new credit, what the PTB decided to do was buffer the credit shock by replacing consumer borrowing with government borrowing:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FYGFDPUN
Stunning, isn’t it?
On the 5 year horizon, we can see that the jump from $5T to $7T was taken while Bush admin budgeting was in effect, and another $2T is fully under Obama.
Almost nobody really has a grip on what these debt-bomb numbers mean. But having lived in Japan in the 90s, I think I know — we’re screwed.
Complicating matters now is NAFTA and Chindia labor that has and continues to hollow-out American labor wages and job security.
Perot in the 1992 debate was right — we’re heading to the global wage of $6/hr:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls#t=1m30s
The first chart on this page:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/10/employment-population-ratio-part-time.html
diagrams what is going on. I think if they don’t double-down on “stimulus” we’re heading down again.
With no other notable effect acting on jobs other than the stimulus,
Isn’t that an overstatement? There was also the hiring of hundreds of thousands by the Census Bureau, and currently a surprising number of department stores are hiring for seasonal employment. All temporary jobs, unfortunately, likely with no benefits.
One problem: the unemployment rate lags behind improvements in the economy
Well, that’s a pretty big problem, isn’t it? It’s why Democrats are smart not to plaster chart number one all over the place because it can be countered with this. It’s a bitter reality in politics that whatever the numerical truth may be, the perception isn’t going to match up. Unemployment holding steady at around 9-10% is still unemployment at 9-10%, and these numbers don’t reflect underemployment or whether the new jobs provide income comparable to the lost jobs. This is all grist for the mill for Republicans (or whomever the political enemy may be in similar past circumstances). For the average American who is struggling or has family members who are struggling, an unemployment and underemployment rate that’s not going down isn’t going to be much comfort.
So, I for one don’t see it as a “resounding success”. It didn’t go far enough. For the past few months, Obama has been touting a “public works” plan to fix the nation’s transportation infrastructure and create jobs, something he’s been talking about since his presidential campaign. I was under the impression that public works was part of what the original stimulus was supposed to cover. Why couldn’t this have been tackled earlier?
Great piece, nice work Luis.
Why can’t the Dem’s do a better job of blowing their own horn. If Dems did have as good of a job at telling the truth as the Republicans do at lying, then they wouldn’t be facing armeggedon on Tuesday.
On the other hand, I recall seeing graphs that basically show us paralleling where things were in 1931 – which is not good.
Obama’s priority for Health Care Reform is commendable. The old system was simply indecent and it was immoral to leave it as it was and not attempt anything. But the first job of any administration is jobs.
He didn’t create Bush’s mess, but he did need to lower unemployment to sub 8% range (basically 2% less than where it is now). That’s basically his job. That he wasn’t able to do that, for whatever reasons, could lead to epic collapse of our system, if it means wrecking-crew Republicans regaining ascendancy.
Better economic policy could have put Republicans away for a generation – as they deserved to be. Now they are back knocking on the door, bringing their wrecking ball with them, threatening to destroy American society, permanently, as we know it.
The fact that Dems won’t defend themselves doesn’t help.
Steve:
I presume that you are not suggesting that between 700,000 and 1.1 million jobs per month are census jobs, are you?
The census hirings had their biggest impact in May, and much smaller impacts in the months preceding. 863,000 private-sector jobs were created in 2010–not 863,000 more than Bush’s disastrous low in January 2009, but 863,000 on top of the now-gone 800,000 private-sector job losses per month where Bush left it–and the census had nothing to do with them. We’re talking about net job gains in the millions.
Trying to shoot down Obama’s job performance because the census may have capped it a bit is like saying that Everest isn’t that big a mountain because it’s covered with snow, or that the 1951 Giants didn’t have an amazing season because they lost the World Series to the Yankees.
So much more than every year that it’s accounting for hundreds of thousands of jobs? Come on, the majority of seasonal stuff like that cancels out because it’s regular. Not to mention that if there is surprisingly high seasonal employment at retailers, that’s a good thing for a different reason. I mean, honestly, you’re really searching for the storm cloud amongst the silver linings, don’t you think?
How can you look at that jobs graph–see 740,000 jobs lost in January 2009, and the trend heading straight down–and claim that the dramatic upswing isn’t something to crow about because of what are literally very minor factors? Can you simply not admit that Obama has done a good job and the stimulus worked? Or is it just too painful, so you ignore the mountain and criticize the foothills? Obama, at his best, oversaw the creation of a million jobs more per month than Bush left in January 2008. That’s private sector or overall numbers.
If you’re saying that people are voting their mindless guts instead of seeing the real picture and voting based on reality, then I think we’re in agreement on this. I just have this weird flaw where I expect voters can, potentially, be told that the frying pan is way better than the fire, and recognize who put them in the fire and who got them out of it and into the frying pan–and who stands the best chance of getting them completely away from the stove, given enough time and maybe even a lack of someone desperately trying to drag them back into the fire.
I know, I am unrealistic sometimes. But I also learned a trick from Republican strategists: if something is repeated often enough, people start believing it, no matter how crazy it may sound to them.
But here’s the twist: It can work with what’s true as well as with what’s false.
Come on. You know that unemployment numbers are one of the least accurate indicators, especially in the way you seem to be looking at them. When Democrats took over control (not just Congress, as the Bush veto as well as excellent Republican strategizing / weak-kneed Democratic idiocy left Republican policies in place through the Bush years) in 2009, the unemployment rate swung upward, and stood to go far higher than 10%. Had it not been for the stimulus, we could easily be at 12% or even higher by now (just draw a line on the figures in the chart from early 2008 to mid-2009, and see where it takes you. Tell me–do you really believe that extending tax cuts for earnings over $250,000 is going to make the unemployment numbers plummet? Those tax rates have been in effect for nearly a decade and the economy still nosedived, so obviously they can’t be seen as a magic bullet. Next, look at where the numbers were going, then at where they did go–and then imagine the change being twice as drastic and more prolonged. That’s where the Democratic policies would have taken us without Republican obstructionism and refusal to compromise.
Many in the general populace may not be able to tell the difference between “catastrophic,” “bad, but a bit better than before,” and “could have been even better,” but I bet you and I both can.
There was also the hiring of hundreds of thousands by the Census Bureau, and currently a surprising number of department stores are hiring for seasonal employment. All temporary jobs, unfortunately, likely with no benefits.
As this chart shows:
http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/10/job-losses-and-recessions-aligned-at.html
census hiring was in fact not that significant. Plus it was only a ~$2000/mo gig, making its fiscal “stimulus” not so significant anyway.
surprising number of department stores are hiring for seasonal employment
This is worded funny : ) I would think every retail store would increase its temp staffing.
Since 2008 and 2009 sucked, perhaps there is the hope that the consumer is ready to come back. Temp staffing is still below 2007 levels, and these aren’t real jobs.
I was under the impression that public works was part of what the original stimulus was supposed to cover. Why couldn’t this have been tackled earlier?
Public works were about $50B of the original $850B.
Note that $50B used to be a LOT of money — it’s enough money to hire 500,000 people @ $100,000 for a year — but it takes time to find the “shovel ready” projects, vet them, etc.
Can you simply not admit that Obama has done a good job and the stimulus worked?
Part of the problem with politics is that we over personalize the power of the presidency. Obama this, Obama that, when in reality it’s an Executive of thousands of people, plus all the input and control Congress has.
But from where I sit Obama and his team have done a real shitty job of understanding what exactly they inherited, what is needed to fix things, and how long it is going to take.
He’s had to fire basically everyone involved in helping him form economic policy — Summers, Emanuel, Orszag. He put Goolsbee in charge of his economics team. Goolsbee says a lot of on-message stuff now (and I think he “get’s it”) but it was his Chicago-school* thinking that got us into the mess we are in now:
“And this study shows that measured this way, the mortgage market has become more perfect, not more irresponsible. People tend to make good decisions about their own economic prospects. As Professor Rosen said in an interview, “Our findings suggest that people make sensible housing decisions in that the size of house they buy today relates to their future income, not just their current income and that the innovations in mortgages over 30 years gave many people the opportunity to own a home that they would not have otherwise had, just because they didn’t have enough assets in the bank at the moment they needed the house.”
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2007/03/dr-goolsbee-ill-stop-impersonating.html
Stimulus is not the solution, though, funny thing, looking back on it I think it was stimulus that was paying my salary ~1996 – 2000 in Japan since the very small tech company I was employed at was getting these oddball jobs making stuff for quasi-government agencies.
I just have this weird flaw where I expect voters can, potentially, be told that the frying pan is way better than the fire, and recognize who put them in the fire and who got them out of it and into the frying pan
Borrowing $2T and then spending it really isn’t that impressive an accomplishment. I think saving GM and the auto subcontracting industry was more impressive, it was something that needed doing in 2008 but the Bush team couldn’t do it.
The cold hard reality is that WE OURSELVES jumped into the fire. First by allowing Bush to invade Iraq and then reelecting him to continue the damage. Then by borrowing trillions of dollars we couldn’t repay.
We may be back in the frying pan now, but the house is burning down.
I might be wrong in this pessimism, but I think there’s a lot of long-term trends that are highly unfavorable and need to be reversed.
Tax rates, health care, military spending, social security, etc.
It’s all a big mess and 40% of this country is ideologically opposed to fixing things. 10% of the rest have any understanding of what’s going down, and the remainder have to be herded like cats in the face of the most bullshit media environment that’s ever been.
*The University of Chicago economics department is the historical ring-leader of “Fresh water Economics” and rife with hard-core apologists for old money and government deregulation. (The Freakonomics people are also from U of C). Of course, Obama was a lecturer at U of C, which might be how he became a made man here.
I presume that you are not suggesting that between 700,000 and 1.1 million jobs per month are census jobs, are you?
Per month??? Maybe I’m reading it entirely wrong but your chart suggests it’s not that much, not to mention your claim that 863,000 jobs were created in 2010 so far. During the peak months it looks like app. 250,000 jobs created and (more often) only 100,000 or less during the bad months. That gets into the millions eventually. But as you’ve noted, it doesn’t significantly offset the unemployment rate.
Anyway, the census created over 500,000 jobs. That would account for half of your high-end estimate of 1.1 million within a month, which ain’t shabby. And in a period of 100,000 a month, it’s more than a bit of a “cap”… especially when it happened in a shorter period of time than the 20 months since the stimulus bill was passed. And what president in the history of the census bureau hasn’t wanted to own those employment numbers on their acheivement record?
So much more than every year that it’s accounting for hundreds of thousands of jobs?
Yes. Since you asked:
“Retailers are expected to hire from 550,000 to 650,000 workers during the next three months, according to data from Chicago-based outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas.”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2010-10-10-holiday-hiring_N.htm
Come on, the majority of seasonal stuff like that cancels out because it’s regular.
According to the article, it’s expected there will be 225,000 to 325,000 more workers hired for such jobs than there were last year, and that may be a positive leading indicator. It’s nothing I’d scoff at.
Not to mention that if there is surprisingly high seasonal employment at retailers, that’s a good thing for a different reason.
Yes! That’s my point exactly. I’m taking issue with the statement “With _no other_ notable effect acting on jobs other than the stimulus.” The census hirings and seasonal retail employment can’t be attributed to the stimulus, and the stimulus can’t be given credit for everything.
How can you look at that jobs graph–see 740,000 jobs lost in January 2009, and the trend heading straight down–and claim that the dramatic upswing isn’t something to crow about because of what are literally very minor factors? Can you simply not admit that Obama has done a good job and the stimulus worked?
I was taking issue with your absolutist rhetoric, not so much the stimulus itself. The stimulus worked… somewhat. Or rather, it did what it could considering how much was put into it. Given the scope of the economic problems, it was much too modest.
Or is it just too painful, so you ignore the mountain and criticize the foothills? Obama, at his best, oversaw the creation of a million jobs more per month than Bush left in January 2008. That’s private sector or overall numbers.
Maybe I’m just incapable of reading graphs, so can you point me to something else with these stats? It looks to me like 35,000 jobs were lost in January 2009 (not 2008) and only a million were created since Obama took office. Even I know it was more than that. I’m seriously having trouble understanding the chart because the numbers on the left appear to be in the hundreds of thousands, so I’m not sure where the million-per-month is coming from, and there’s no detailed explanation of the chart. But it would square with the federal government’s reports that come out every month. I think it was only 85,000 new jobs for the month of September.
If you’re saying that people are voting their mindless guts instead of seeing the real picture and voting based on reality, then I think we’re in agreement on this. I just have this weird flaw where I expect voters can, potentially, be told that the frying pan is way better than the fire, and recognize who put them in the fire and who got them out of it and into the frying pan–and who stands the best chance of getting them completely away from the stove, given enough time and maybe even a lack of someone desperately trying to drag them back into the fire.
“Voting their mindless guts.” That’s one way of putting it, I guess.
If only things were so simple. But as they said in the sixties, “What is reality?” Because everyone’s reality is different. Someone unable to find a job with an underwater mortgage will be living a very different reality than someone with a stable job and stable living situation. This is where I wish a little more compassion would come into play here. When I read all the pundits and bloggers and their commenters suggest that people are stupid for voting Republican, I think “you’re not helping matters”. I’m all for calling oppossing politicians stupid or nefarious or dishonest, since they’re the ones pulling the strings. But regular voters are the ones getting manipulated. People in general aren’t very throroughly educated in general. But people aren’t stupid. In this climate, what they are are scared. Many of us either are or know someone who’s unemployed and desparate, or can’t keep up with the bills, or the mortgage and car payments, or their health care payments, or what have you. The ones who bear the political brunt is often the party in power, the face of the Establishment, whether that’s fair or not. That’s just human nature, and if the economy doesn’t improve in the long run then we’ll continue to play this ping-pong game of switching party-allegiance. The only way to maintain power short of fixing the economic problem is to create a popular uprising. This is what the Tea Party has managed to do. Obama also managed it in 2008, but the Dems have lost control of their message. And “crowing” about job creation is no way to get it back. Indeed, it may have the opposite effect because that macro reality doesn’t square with an individual’s micro-reality.
To elaborate further: Officially we’re not in a recession. The recession ended in June of 2009. Technically, that’s correct. It’s based upon cold numbers and statistics that any computer can factor. If we were a nation of economists and theoreticians, we’d be breating a deep sigh of relief. But the statment “We’re no longer in a recession” is no comfort to those experiencing the more tangible, emotional reality of unemployment, inadequate retirement savings, etc. A recession is just an earthquake or hurricane happening in a specific time-frame. And, like an earthquake or hurricane, it’s the after-effects that cause just as much devastation as the inital impact, if not more. It’s certainly lasts longer. (Witness Haiti and New Orleans.) So, while we’re past the recession itself, we’re still very much in the midst of the effects of the recession. Which brings us to the job creation issue. Democrats are smart not to “plaster” this chart while we’re wallowing in the after-effects of the recession. It hasn’t proven to be the panacea of all that ails us. It’s not enough to offset unemployment, it’s not enough to offset many other financial indicators, and it’s not enough to cheer people or get them motivated to rally towards the Democrats. The mindset isn’t there yet.
I know, I am unrealistic sometimes. But I also learned a trick from Republican strategists: if something is repeated often enough, people start believing it, no matter how crazy it may sound to them.
But here’s the twist: It can work with what’s true as well as with what’s false.
I suspect it works better when one’s not on the defensive.
Come on. You know that unemployment numbers are one of the least accurate indicators, especially in the way you seem to be looking at them.
I’m sure a corporate CEO would say the same thing. Indeed, the stock market is notorious for spiking whenever layoffs are announced. It’s over 10,000 now, and I’d say the stock market isn’t an accurate indicator of financial strength either, at least not for those many millions that have nothing to do with it. But if you’re using the word “indicator” as in “leading indicator”, you’re right. Unemployment is one of the last things to recover in a recovery, but we can’t expect people to nod their heads in contemplation and say “I understand.”
People in general aren’t very throroughly educated in general. But people aren’t stupid. In this climate, what they are are scared.
Scared *and* stupid. 1% of this nation have an adequate working understanding of economics, and the current macro facts. Plus modern message crafting can fool most of the people most of the time (it’s gotten better since Lincoln’s day).
One person in a 1000, if that, knows that consumer debt doubled to $14T from 2002 to 1H07 (and has been declining since). Having no TV, I don’t consume much of the “MSM”, but my general sense is that We The People have been kept in the dark and fed BS since 1980 or earlier. If the PTB were to level with us we’d all go running for the hills with hair afire.
Officially we’re not in a recession. The recession ended in June of 2009. Technically, that’s correct. It’s based upon cold numbers and statistics that any computer can factor. If we were a nation of economists and theoreticians, we’d be breating a deep sigh of relief. But the statment “We’re no longer in a recession” is no comfort to those experiencing the more tangible, emotional reality of unemployment, inadequate retirement savings, etc.
This is a VERY good point. What’s the point of calling an end to the recession when unemployment is still 4X worse than the 1990 bottom, and nearly 3X worse than the tech recession. Actually, I already know the answer to that question since the NBER recession committee is just some dudes working out of Stanford with their own agendas.
I suspect it works better when one’s not on the defensive.
Yeah, I did sense Luis was a bit uncharacteristically snippy toward you. I guess Geoff’s typical dumbassery in the other thread knocked him off his game, you should see my response that is (thank God) stuck in moderation, LOL.
Yeah, I did sense Luis was a bit uncharacteristically snippy toward you.
With me, it’s not all that uncharacterstic. :p
Sorry for the delay in replying–I had a very busy week, a bad cold, a site hack, and then had to catch up before I could get to this point on my list. Been wanting to for several days…
You’re not reading my chart wrong, but you are reading my statement wrong. Read it again and you’ll see that I wrote “863,000 private-sector jobs were created in 2010.” Why private sector? Because you claimed that census–government–jobs were give Obama an illusion of success. So I showed numbers which proved that his private-sector jobs have actually been doing better than the overall numbers.
And they were–see the latest post, with charts and data sources, that I authored on Oct. 31. As for 700,000 to 1.1 million, that’s the shift from (a) Bush left the job market, losing 806,000 jobs per month, to where Obama is this year, gaining as many as 241,000 jobs in April, a difference of roughly 1.05 million jobs. That’s where Obama has gone from and to. The 700,000 accounts for the current lows–but you are correct in that I erred–it is not 700,000 to 1.1 million, it is 900,000 to 1.05 million. Sorry about that. But it makes my argument a bit stronger, if anything.
How do you explain the huge gains made? You say that 500,000 were gained through the census hiring–great. However, if you will note from my post, we are not talking about just one month. We are talking about a period over 20 months–from Feb. 2009 to Sep. 2010–over which time the 500,000 jobs would equal 25,000 a month, a very thin cap indeed considering that currently we are enjoying between 600,000-700,000 jobs per month better than January 2009. So forgive me if I am not impressed.
And again I point to private-sector jobs, which the census hiring does not affect–and you will see that the situation under Obama has improved even better than the overall market–we are still gaining private sector jobs. Here’s the chart:
No census hiring to pad the numbers here. How do you explain it?
As for the unusual seasonal hiring, you are talking about predicted hires over the next three months, not jobs that can explain the last 20 months. Why use projected numbers about the future to knock down solid numbers about the past? Makes no sense, same as your conclusions.
Um… I would point again to what I wrote, not what you imagined I wrote. I wrote:
I was not talking about the end of 2010, to which the seasonal job gains you pointed to apply, but the turnaround shown in the chart–from Bush’s slide down to Obama’s rocket upward. I don’t think that a few hundred thousand predicted extra temporary hires at the end of 2010 explain Obama’s complete turnaround of the job market in February of 2009 when he passed the stimulus (as I clearly noted was the topic), nor do I think your numbers in any way explain the continued gain in jobs that went from Feb. 2009 to April 2010–a 14-month stretch of gains in both overall and private-sector jobs.
In short, you have not yet explained, even close, how the stimulus was not the primary cause of the turnaround and continued job gain shown in the chart.