I’ve run a study on this. What you said there is not true.
For forty years we averaged a 9.75% increase in jobs each four years. Each two terms of a president, we increased jobs by 18.75%. I know that looks lopsided, but it worked out that way in the study.
We fell off the boat in 2001, and it continued half-way through Obama’s terms in office.
Instead of an 18.75% increase during the Bush years, jobs increased around 1.0%. During Obama’s first term, it increased at roughly the same rate.
For those four terms in office, we under created jobs significantly.
By now we should have over 190 million jobs.
We have about 145 million jobs in the nation.
We’re not talking about retired folks, people with infirmaries, or people on Welfare, although the people on Welfare should be added to the roughly 50 million we have out of work, who are perfectly able to.
Why did/does the jobs rate increase like this? It does for several reasons. One is that the population base continues to grow. The other is that when jobs grow, they actually support the growth of other jobs.
In 2001 the first Baby Boomers were reaching the age of 55. In 2011 they were 65, and now in 2017 the last of the Baby Boomers is reaching the age of 53. Our population is comprised increasingly of people who are simply no longer productive in many jobs even though they may be counted in the "civilian non-institutional population" for labor force purposes.
Your numbers also don't account for the impacts of automation on labor needs as the population grows. Simply put, I have said for years that this country's capacity to produce things far exceeds our ability to consume them -- which leads to the obvious question of what happens when we no longer need the employment base to support our own population?