MUST READ..WSJ-Tallying President Obama’s Jobs Record (remember that Obama took office as the economy was losing 900,000 jobs a month.. if anyone still has any doubt that Obama saved the U.S. from catastrophe, all they have to do is read this - note to Republicans, teabaggers and conservatives, note the trend of government jobs)
November 2, 2012, 12:12 PM
Tallying President Obama’s Jobs Record
By Sudeep Reddy
blogs.wsj.com
President Barack Obama has spent nearly all of his tenure with a net loss in jobs during his time in office. Now that has changed.
The number of jobs is now up slightly since Mr. Obama took office in January 2009. With the latest jobs report, current Labor Department figures show the total number of payroll jobs at 133.8 million, up 194,000 from January 2009. (The president actually topped the hurdle in September, based on the upward revision to that month released today.)
Private-sector payrolls are up 759,000 since January 2009. Government jobs are down 565,000 under Mr. Obama’s tenure.
The payroll growth is more substantial once the Labor Department‘s annual revisions are taken into account. The preliminary benchmark revision, which takes effect in February 2013, would add 386,000 overall jobs, or 453,000 private-sector jobs, to the payroll count for March 2012.
Adding in those revisions, total payrolls are up by 580,000 since January 2009 and private payrolls are up 1.2 million.
Of course, presidents can inherit good economic trends and bad economic trends when they take office. President George W. Bush came into the White House with a recession starting in the aftermath of the 1990s tech boom. The economy lost about 2 million jobs in his first year in office. During Mr. Obama’s first year in office, the economy lost about 4.3 million jobs.
The economy under President Bush added 1.1 million jobs over eight years based on the total payroll count between January 2001 and January 2009. That number was positive only because the number of government jobs rose during those years. Private-sector employment fell by 646,000 during his presidency.
The latest tick up in the unemployment rate, to 7.9% in October, puts it just above the 7.8% in January 2009 when Mr. Obama took office. |
