First of all, the U.S. hasn't "lost" 3 million jobs. The number of unemployed has gone up by 3 million as the economy has not absorbed the increase in the size of the labor market which naturally occurs with population growth.
The number of employed people in the U.S.
January 2001: 137,846,000
January 2002: 135,791,000 (low point in Bush administration)
November 2003: 138,603,000
The number of unemployed people in the U.S.
January 2001: 5,951,000
June 2003: 9,358,000 (highest number of unemployed in Bush administration)
November 2003: 8,674,000
The 3 million figure comes from that increase in the number of unemployed. Let's look at that compared with past job cycles:
June 1990: 6,590,000
June 1992: 10,040,000
July 1981: 7,863,000
December 1982: 12,051,000
April 1974: 4,618,000
May 1975: 8,433,000
December 1968: 2,685,000
December 1970: 5,076,000
(less than 3 million but compared to the size of the labor force back then a much more significant increase than the current one)
March 1957: 2,509,000
July 1958: 5,079,000
(again, less than 3 million but much larger in proportion to the size of the labor force at that time)
May 1953: 1,596,000
September 1954: 3,927,000
So, Lizzie, the answer to your question is that the U.S. has lost 3 million jobs, actually significantly more than 3 million, in every major downturn of the past 40 years except 1968-1970, when it lost 2.3 million jobs out of a labor force that was about 75 million people, as compared to the current labor force of nearly 140 million people. Every major downturn of the postwar period has involved a greater job loss than the current one.
(Above statistics generated from Labor Dept. statistics available from bls.gov |
