By Bill Wilson — In the State of the Union Address, Barack Obama attempted to convince the American people that the economy has turned the corner, things are getting better, and “we’ve come too far to turn back now.”
Reading Obama’s speech carefully, he noted the 8 million jobs that have overall been lost in the recession.
Then, he painted a rosy portrait by saying, “In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs.” But he’s comparing apples and oranges.
There is a distinction between the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) measurement of private sector jobs in the establishment survey and the overall jobs picture in the household survey. For obvious reasons, the narrower establishment survey does not catch everything. But most Americans who heard the speech probably thought Obama was saying the economy had created 3 million jobs overall since Feb. 2010.
It was a distinction Obama again failed to make on Jan. 25, a day later, on the campaign trail in Iowa. Then, he said, “We have created 3 million jobs over the last 22 months.” Again, implying the economy has created more jobs than it actually has. However?
According to BLS, since Feb. 2010, when Obama starts measuring his claim that 3 million jobs were created, the amount of people employed has only increased from 138.66 million to 140.79 million, a net increase of only 2.13 million. While that sounds nice, that is a pace of just 96,000 a month, which does not even keep up with the growth of the population — which grew at a pace of 163,000 a month — let alone replace the 8 million jobs that were lost in the recession.
That means, when population growth and the loss of 4 million working age adults from the labor force who have simply stopped looking for work are fully taken into account, the unemployment situation has not improved at all.
We have an effective unemployment rate of 11 percent, and an underemployed rate of 17 percent. There are over 27 million working age adults who still cannot find full-time work, no thanks to Obama’s “stimulus” policies. To lie about the horrific state of our economy and the plight of 27 million Americans who cannot find work is a crime against humanity.
The Obama Administration is entitled to its own opinion, but not its own facts. Technically, if one looks singularly at BLS’ establishment survey of the private sector, 3.1 million jobs were created by businesses in the past 22 months.
But that does not reveal the whole story.
Obama is creating the false impression that the unemployment situation is improving when as noted above we’re stuck in the water.
The irony is that even if the overall economy had really created more than 3 million jobs in the past 22 months, we would still only be creating 140,000 jobs a month, still not faster than the growth of the population.
Obama is out of his league. It is time for new leadership who will honestly evaluate the situation, and prescribe the pro-growth policies to turn the Ship of State around from sinking into the Abyss.
Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government. You can follow Bill on Twitter at @BillWilsonALG.
