August 22, 2012, 8:27 pm
American Enterprise Institute - This is stunning:
Willie Geist, MSNBC: What would you say to that same person that said, ‘Well, that hasn’t worked for four years. I haven’t had the job over time, it’s time for a change.’
Stephanie Cutter, Obama deputy campaign manager: Well, I think that worker probably has a good understanding of what’s happened over the past four years in terms of the president coming in and seeing 800,000 jobs lost on the day that the president was being sworn in, and seeing the president moving pretty quickly to stem the losses, to turn the economy around, and over the past, you know, 27 months we’ve created 4.5 million private sector jobs. That’s more jobs than in the Bush recovery, in the Reagan recovery, there’s obviously more we need to do, and as I said to Mika at the at beginning of the program, I think that unemployed worker probably sees one person in this race trying to move the country forward and that’s the president.
Team Obama, shorter: You didn’t build that, Reagan!
Just how do the Obama and Reagan recoveries stack up in terms of jobs?
• From the end of the recession in June 2009 through July 2012 — the first 37 months of the Obama recovery — the U.S. economy has generated 2.7 million net new jobs. From the jobs low point in February 2010, the U.S. economy has generated 4 million net new jobs.
From the end of the 1981-82 recession through the end of of 1985 — the first 37 months of the Reagan recovery — the U.S.created 9.8 million net new jobs. And if you adjust for the larger U.S. population today, the comparable figure is more than 12 million jobs.
Score one for Reagan.
• Another of way of assessing the U.S. labor market is by looking at the employment-population ratio, a simple measure that looks how many Americans are working as a share of the population (or what the Labor Department calls the civilian, non-institutional population.)
During the Reagan Recovery, that ratio increased. During the Obama Recovery, that ratio has been dead in the water.
Score one for Reagan.
• One more way of looking at the health of the labor market is by examining labor force participation. During the Obama recovery, that rate has fallen as the Labor Department has stopped counting discouraged workers who’ve given up looking for work. During the Reagan Recovery, that rate rose as the unemployed flooded back into the job market..
Score one for Reagan.
In fact, if the labor force participation rate was as high today as when Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 11%, not 8.3%.
No matter how tricksy Team Obama is, there is really no argument here. The Reagan Recovery created far more jobs and a far healthier labor market than the Obama.
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