The Big Unemployment Lie

[mnehring]

There have been a lot of misleading stories on the unemployment numbers, but I just now have realized the worst of them all (I am sure others have caught this..)

Everyone is quoting the unemployment numbers going up for the past 4 years. Their folly is they are accounting the year 2000 into that equation. Bush was not sworn into office until 2001.

Using the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s numbers, not even accounting for household numbers and 1099s, if you remove the job losses from the equation, Bush has not lost any net jobs. It is only when you add in the last year of Clinton where you see a net job loss. The fault is all the press is talking about the last four years, hoping people don’t realize that Bush has not been in office four years yet.

Then… of course, if you look at the household survey and 1099 reporting, employment has actually improved under Bush… but that is a whole other story…

http://www.bls.gov/lau/home.htm

What do you all bet these numbers will never see press?

[mnehring]

All of this in spite of 9-11, the war on terror, and a recession!

[Robert A Cook PE]

Hmn.

Hadn't noticed THAT!

[crazyhorse691]

I apologize. It fell under my radar. I heard references to the last four years and I just did not catch it. Thanks for the heads up. This is why I love Free Republic; ideas everywhere.

[Arkie2]

Interesting. I never gave it a thought when the press trotted out those numbers. This needs repeating!

[mnehring]

The problem is it take works to calculate the numbers based on the reports. How many of your average Dems can do that?

[Arkie2]

I'm ashamed to admit I didn't think of this. Can you break out the numbers? There's a few Dems i would like to show these figures.

[hawkaw]

Wow this is very interesting if true. I would love a break down of the numbers to have an understanding of this.

[TheyConvictedOglethorpe]

Here's a "spin it any way you like" statistic:

Establishment survey: cumulative change in nonfarm payrolls, January 2001 to July 2004: -1.169 million

Household survey: cumulative change in total employment, January 2001 to July 2004: +2.028 million

[mnehring]

You know, I like that better. It is more cut and dry. It also reinforces the fact that there are a lot more small businesses being started and people being hired to these small businesses (IE, Tax Cuts work!)

[NC28203]

Ok, but this same survey shows that during the malaise of the Carter administration the economy added about 9 million jobs between January 1977 and July of 1980. The growth rate was more than 10% from 80.7 million to 89.8 million.

[B4Ranch]

Yesterday on http://www.dailyreckoning.com/
(This is his normal style of writing)

MOGAMBO GURU by Richard Daughty

Well, to be fair, this is news to somebody? How could they NOT have an expanding economy? Everybody is having an expanding economy! That is the whole freaking point of deficit spending and creating excess money and credit via the central banks! It expands economies! Nobody would ever suggest otherwise, and by "nobody" and "ever" I mean that there is not one instance of an idiot ever saying so, in the whole history of idiots, which is a probably a long, long line of really dumb people all genetically related to me somehow, and I am as surprised as you are about that! But, of course deficit-spending will energize an economy, you fool! Tons and tons of instantaneous spending will always energize an economy! And with globalization, when one economy is energized, it tends to leak out into all the other economies after a few iterations of the system.

Okay, that now we know about the worldwide explosive expansion of credit, all of which stem initially from Alan Greenspan and his Federal Reserve, and how it is a tonic for economies. It is usually at this exact point where I usually throw in some verrrryyyyy disrespectful and insulating remarks about either a) monetary policy, b) fiscal policy or c) something entirely unrelated ("Oh, look!" she says. " A puppy with a pretty ribbon tied around its neck!" and I say "Yeah, just like the Federal Reserve has tied a rope around our necks, and pretty soon you are going to see how much fun it will be to have your legs slowly eaten off by inflation in prices!")

But it always comes down, in the final analysis, to price. And price means money. And money means Federal Reserve. And Federal Reserve means Alan Greenspan. And Alan Greenspan means continuous Federal Reserve expansion of money and credit. And expansion of money and credit means expansion of the money supply into "surplus mode." And a money supply in "surplus mode" means all that money will eventually find a home in prices. And that means higher prices.

[SuperSonic]

Say what??

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Why shoudl Bush be blamed for job losses from January to August of 2001, prior to his economic and fiscal policies going into effect?

[mnehring]

::rant on::

Frankly, why should any president be blamed for job losses or growth. Unless a President does something drastic (raise or lower taxes... ) they are only a small cog in the unemployment wheel.

The only way someone could say that Bush caused unemployment is if they believe, 1. Bush somehow was responsible for the fraudulent .com boom of the 90s (I'll blame this one on the day trader phenomena personally). 2. Bush was responsible for 9-11.

Bush did, however, take action to turn around what could have been a devastating set of circumstances by pushing hard for tax cuts for individuals and tax credits for small businesses. This encouraged those who lost their jobs to start new businesses, and hire. More and more middle class people who were unemployed are now business owners and moving towards the upper class..

::rant off::

[lelio]

http://www.bls.gov/lau/home.htm
What do you all bet these numbers will never see press?

What report are you citing from there?

[B4Ranch]

Take off the rose colored glasses.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1186643/posts

[Your Nightmare]

I'm not sure what you are talking about. There has been a net loss of jobs since Bush took office. Your link goes to the Local Area Unemployment Statistics, not the national. That may be the problem.

Here are the numbers (seasonal and not):

Data extracted on: September 2, 2004 (5:25:17 PM)

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey

Series Id:           LNS13000000 Seasonal Adjusted Series title:        (Seas) Unemployment Level Labor force status:  Unemployed Type of data:        Number in thousands Age:                 16 years and over
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2001	5997	6072	6136	6274	6227	6481	6583	7057	7151	7723	8020	8291
2002	8126	8184	8278	8578	8397	8384	8400	8335	8269	8363	8565	8698
2003	8428	8581	8519	8799	8957	9245	9048	8929	8966	8797	8653	8398
2004	8297	8170	8352	8164	8203	8248	8196

---

Series Id:           LNU03000000 Not Seasonally Adjusted Series title:        (Unadj) Unemployment Level Labor force status:  Unemployed Type of data:        Number in thousands Age:                 16 years and over
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2001	6647	6523	6509	6004	5901	6816	6858	7017	6766	7175	7617	7773	6801
2002	9051	8823	8776	8255	7969	8758	8693	8271	7790	7769	8170	8209	8378
2003	9395	9260	9018	8501	8500	9649	9319	8830	8436	8169	8269	7945	8774
2004	9144	8770	8834	7837	7792	8616	8518