Wampum

More job creation perspective...

Jimmy Carter's four years in office saw a net increase of 9.9 million new jobs to the US economy. Halfway through his first term, Ronald Reagan had chalked up a loss of 2.2 million jobs. However, he was able to salvage his first term and go onto re-election by adding an average of 300K jobs per month during the second half of that term. Granted, Reagan did this by a massive infusion of cash into defense spending, thereby racking up huge federal deficits, but the public focused on the idea that regardless of the source, Reagan was creating jobs and the unemployment rate was dropping.

While the first 18 months of the Administration of George H.W. Bush saw an addition of nearly 3 million jobs to the US economy, the loss of 1.6 million jobs over the next year superceded those earlier gains, at least in the eyes of the public. And while Bush Sr. was able to staunch the bleeding in the months up to the election, the anemic addition of an average of 55K new jobs per month did not prevent the unemployment rate from continuing to climb. In fact, it was not until new job creation passed a 6 month average of 100K per month in July 1992 that the unemployment rate began to fall in August. However, it was too little, too late for Bush I, as voters rejected his employment policies just three months later, despite his foreign policy successes and a healthy 5% GDP.

Since January 2001, George W. Bush has overseen a loss of 2,687,000 jobs from the US economy and a 2.5% increase in the unemployment rate. If history is any indicator and next summer is indeed the drop dead point at which the recovery needs to switch from a job-less to job-full one, the BLS needs to begin reporting a monthly increase of at least 100K new jobs per month. And even that won't prevent Bush's Democratic opponents from taunting him with the millions of jobs he never recovered. Reagan was able to overcome a similar job deficit, but only with impressive numbers (September 1983 saw a record 1.1 million increase.) As witnessed by this month's 93K jobs lost, Bush Jr.'s "recovery" is heading in the wrong direction. If three irresponsible, deficit-busting tax cuts haven't done the job, just what will?