4.5 Million Jobs Dishonest - Net Gain ONLY 300,000
How Can An Educated/Honest Liberal Look At Himself In The Mirror
I saw a ton of stupid and ignorant comments from friends on Facebook and in the media about "outright lies" at the Republican convention. Without going there (which I'm happy to do), these people need to move out of their glass houses.
A Reality Check From CNN
(CNN), Sept 5, 2012-- Anyone watching the Democratic National Convention
on Tuesday night heard the number 4.5 million several times.
"Despite incredible odds and
united Republican opposition, our president took action, and now we've seen 4.5
million new jobs," San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the party's keynote speaker,
said.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who
served as President Barack Obama's chief of staff, and Massachusetts Gov. Deval
Patrick, who followed Obama's November rival Mitt Romney as governor of
Massachusetts, both cited the same number.
It's a big-sounding number, given
the still-sputtering job market. So we're giving it a close eyeballing.
The facts:
The number Castro cites is an
accurate description of the
growth of private-sector jobs since January 2010, when the long, steep slide
in employment finally hit bottom. But while a total of 4.5 million jobs sounds
great, it's not the whole picture.
Nonfarm private payrolls hit a
post-recession low of 106.8 million that month, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics. The figure currently stands at 111.3 million as of July.
While that is indeed a gain of
4.5 million, it's only a net
gain of 300,000 over the course of the Obama administration to date. The
private jobs figure stood at 111 million in January 2009, the month Obama took
office.
And total
nonfarm payrolls, including government workers, are down from 133.6 million
workers at the beginning of 2009 to 133.2 million in July 2012. There's been a
net loss of nearly 1 million public-sector jobs since Obama took office, despite
a surge in temporary hiring for the 2010 census.
Meanwhile, the jobs that have
come back aren't the same ones that were lost.
According to a study released
last week by the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project, low-wage fields such as
retail sales and food service are adding jobs nearly three times as fast as
higher-paid occupations.
Conclusion:
The figure of 4.5 million jobs
is accurate if you look at the most favorable period and category for the
administration. But overall, there are still fewer people working now than when
Obama took office at the height of the recession.
No comments:
Post a Comment