Need Help Debunking "3 Million Jobs Lost Under Bush" Claim

Self ^ | December 12, 2003 | Self

[pogo101]

Over and over we have heard the Democrat mantra of "3 million jobs lost under Pres. Bush." Can someone link me to one or more websites answering this charge?

I HAVE heard that the # derives from the BLS's count of "payroll employment," and therefore that it assumes that anyone leaving an employee position, who does not get another such position, disappears from the labor force. In short, it excludes the millions of people who leave the payroll of, say, IBM, and go into business for themselves or into a partnership -- but not on a "payroll" as an employee.

It further appears that even this slanted approach to "jobs lost" is rapidly becoming a bad one for Dems, as the BLS's "payroll employment" count has gone up by about 250,000 jobs per month for a couple of months now and appears likely to continue at that rate through (re!)election time.

[So Cal Rocket]

I've looked for this data myself, and the closest I can come is a loss of around 2.6M jobs... this comes from the BLS, seasonally adjusted, non-farm payrolls. I'll see if I can link the data.

[So Cal Rocket]

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Data extracted on: December 12, 2003 (5:38:04 PM)

National Employment, Hours and Earnings

Series Id:     CES0000000001 Seasonally Adjusted Super Sector:  Total nonfarm Industry:      Total nonfarm Data Type:     ALL EMPLOYEES, THOUSANDS
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2000	130760	130885	131380	131674	131905	131871	131953	132001	132129	132137	132345	132445
2001	132436	132560	132527	132247	132230	132064	131867	131719	131550	131198	130900	130661
2002	130578	130510	130481	130415	130411	130383	130204	130224	130289	130408	130409	130198
2003	130356	130235	130084	130062	129986	129903	129846	129881	129980	130117(p)	130174(p)
p : preliminary

 

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[MarkeyD]

Perhaps you should just ask them what other president inherited a recession, a stock market crash, and a terrorist attack that had a trillion dollar effect on the economy?

[Verginius Rufus]

There was a good column on this subject in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago, or maybe more than a month now, on the Op Ed page, but I don't remember the date. I think the author concluded that the correct figure was a couple of hundred thousand jobs.

[CO_dreamer]

Well, Hoover got the recession and stock market crash, but no terrorism.

[bjcintennessee]

I posted the following a couple of days ago:

On News/Activism 12/09/2003 2:49:31 AM EST #86 of 93

Rush addressed the unemployment issue today. Below is a cut & paste from his website (my empasis in bold):

It Doesn't Look Like We've Lost Jobs

December 8, 2003

Our economy is booming at historic levels. Yet myths of a "jobless" recovery are being pushed by politicians hoping to reap votes from your misery. Before you buy into any of the dire job loss statistics reported by people running for president or their willing accomplices, check out the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

News Releases: Unemployment Figures Then and Now... (DoL BLS: January 2001 Employment Situation) (DoL BLS: November 2003 Employment Situation)

The employed civilian labor force had 135,999,000 workers during the early days of the recession in January 2001 when Bill Clinton left office. The employed civilian labor force at the end of last month, with the recession long over, was 138,603,000. Those raw numbers show 2.6 million MORE jobs now. So you can see why I distrust the figures of those Democrats with a political motive for painting job loss as awful as possible, who make wild claims of 2.3 to 3.7 to 475 billion jobs lost under Bush. Besides, common sense tells us that some people who "lose" jobs actually go out and get new ones - much to the DNC's dismay.

If you dismiss these numbers as Bush administration lies, I would ask also that you look with a similarly jaundiced eye at the negative numbers - which in many cases come from political campaigns! I would also remind you that it was the Clinton Commerce Department that inflated economic growth figures by 10-30%. (Story ) The Democrats and their TV lackeys know full well that unemployment is always a "lagging indicator," but hope you won't figure that out for yourselves. They want to keep you miserable, so you turn your anger towards Bush. The truth is, none of them can run a campaign saying, "Things are pretty good, but I can do better - and here's how." They can only win if things go badly for America

[DeathAngel]

"Perhaps you should just ask them what other president inherited a recession, a stock market crash, and a terrorist attack that had a trillion dollar effect on the economy?"

So, Bush's response is to let more IT and industrial jobs go overseas, allow millions of illegals into this country, and spend like a drunken sailor? How do you account for those seriously negative actions to labor and economic health?

[Allegra]

Perhaps you should just ask them what other president inherited a recession, a stock market crash, and a terrorist attack that had a trillion dollar effect on the economy?

Exactly. The economic growth began slowing down and the market falling in spring of 2000. Then along came 9/11, Enron, WorldComm, Global Crossing, etc.

Jobs are coming back now, despite what the gloom and doomers want us to think. I've experienced this personally as have several around me.

The Dems are going to have to find something else to harp on.

[MarkeyD]

How could he stop letting more IT and industrial jobs go overseas? I thought the Senate crafted the laws that might control these things? And purhaps if the IT people didn't suck, then they wouldn't have to go overseas. I've been in IT/software for 20 years and by my estimates 95% of the people I have met/worked with are over paid idiots. Greenspan has even said that the deficit has not had any affect on the economy.

[lchoro]

There's a large disparity between seasonally adjusted and non-adjusted employment counts. If you use the non-adjusted counts, you see a large drop-off in employment from November 2000 to January 2001 of almost 3 million. I gather this is due in large measure to the payroll padding that occurred in 2000 due to the national census, the election, government layoffs in the changeover of administrations, and the seasonal layoffs of retailers.

[MarkeyD]

Right, and who was POTUS then?

[UB355]

interesting little admission in the Milwaukee Journal today regarding Wisconsin. http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/dec03/192004.asp Helgerson said Thursday that total state tax collections rose by 4.4% from July 1 through Oct. 31, compared with same period in the previous year. That was double the anemic 1.8% growth in all of last year, when the state's economy struggled through a recession. But it was less than the 5.3% annual growth needed to meet income projections for the current state budget, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The State economy actually grew last year. A recession ? How can that be ?

[Freedom of Speech Wins]

The internet companies borrowed from the banks and investors under Clinton's reign. A lot of them then went bankrupt in Bush Jr.'s reign.

They also sparked cutthroat competition in many industries. All this led to job losses.

Then you have all the companies that just hire illegals and the illegals pouring in under Bush Jr. and Clinton.

You have the salaries of the employed going down and noone in politics giving a crap, except for the reduced tax revenue inflow.

Bush, Jr. has admitted time and time again that this job loss has created a situation where the American worker is in trouble and that the country needs more employment for Americans. Many of his speeches have referred to this.

So he has owned up to the stats you are trying to debunk.

Here the Democrats have a legit beef.

Not saying who is to blame for it, just acknowledging a legit concern.

[non-anonymous]

The other survey is the household survey, which shows the highest level of employment ever in history; i.e. no "3 million jobs lost" at all.

This link (PDF) explains the difference between the payroll and household survey. Here's another from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[clintonh8r]

RATs....

lips moving...

[CyberCowboy777]

Why would one look to the adjusted or non-adjusted?

Is one consider the gold standard and the other numbers game?

[CyberCowboy777]

Am I reading this correctly?

As of Nov '03 we have had an increase of 589,000 jobs since the second quarter?

[WilliamofCarmichael]

If you are going to refute the Dem lies you'd do well to use facts, see

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

To wit, "Nonfarm payroll employment rose slightly over the month (57,000)."

250,000 is the number needed per month for several months just to catch up. 250,000 was expected but did not happen. Also, be prepared to counter arguments that many of the 57,000 jobs are temporary agency jobs.

Be prepared to talk about the app. 1.4 million working part time jobs because they cannot find full time jobs.

The Dems may even bring up the Cyber India Online Ltd. article that reported since the H1B limited was raised a couple years ago nine out of ten IT jobs in the U.S. have gone to H1B workers. Total H1B workers holding jobs (that American won't do? You suppose?) at the end of 2002 was well over a million.

Anyone with any sense knows that we are going through recovery. Several economists admit that this is not a classic recovery. Some like Stephen Roach are trying to find the model that explains the anomalies.

It not anyone's fault. It's capitalism. It's free trade. It's many things. It's the way things are. Some in our society are paying the price. Things will get better in due time. Years perhaps. In the meantime if you are not a believer then you are a Bush-hater who wants the government to care for you. Go figure.