Obama’s Very Bad No Good Jobs Record

Okay, here is the bad news. From the New York Times:

Here is the comment on the chart:

The chart above shows economy-wide job changes in this last recession and recovery compared with other recent ones, with the black line representing the most recent downturn. Since the downturn began in December 2007, the economy has shed, on balance, about 5 percent of its nonfarm payroll jobs. And that does not even account for the fact that the working-age population has continued to grow, meaning that if the economy were healthy we should have more jobs today than we had before the recession.

And here is a bit more:

There are now 14 million workers who are looking for work and cannot find it; the figure nearly doubles if you include workers who are in part-time jobs but want to be employed full time, and those who want to work but have stopped looking. A broader measure of the unemployment rate that includes these underemployed workers is 16.2 percent.

There isn't any good news. Allow me to state the obvious: since President Obama took office the bottom fell out. Job loss during recessions is not unusually. Job losses of this magnitude are very unusual. Worse still is the fact that, this time, there has been virtually no recovery. We are stuck in a very deep hole.

Is this all Obama's fault? Hardly. The economic policies he instituted when taking office were extensions of those that Bush authored as his tenure approached an end and the current recession was under way.

However, Obama has been President for almost three years. His economic policies, whatever they were, have failed spectacularly. That is the record he has to run on next year. I don't think that economics determines the outcome of elections, but it surely has a really big effect.

Obama's campaign will consist of nothing other than demonizing the Republican nominee. What else does he have? He had better hope that it works. The rest of us, Democrats, Republicans, and independents, had better hope that it doesn't. If Obama is reelected, he will limp back into office and be just as clueless as he has always been. Maybe the sun will rise and he will be blessed. Don't count on it. Job growth isn't going to recover in the next Presidential term.

Comments

[Donald Pay]

Your visual shows roughly this: job growth on the backside of a recession mirrors job loss at the front end. That visual shows that the present rate of job growth is on target with historic patterns.

[Ken Blanchard]

You are an amazing man, Donald.

[Bill Fleming]

KB, Don's right, isn't he? The chart shows that in general, (with the exception of 1980) the recoveries have been taking longer, and the upside of the curve is flatter. Are you looking for more symmetry in the curve shape, left to right, KB? Not sure it's reasonable to expect that, given the unprecedented depth of the plunge and the slow recovery curve of the last two cycles. But you're right, none of that is going to help Obama make a convincing "accomplishments" argument. Good thing he'll have a mutt like Rick Perry to whup up on. ;^)

[Dave]

Too bad recent private sector gains have been of set by public sector losses driven by GOP austerity measures...

[Dave]

sorry, off-set...

[Dave]

Ken, contrary to your stated belief, your chart shows that job losses were in a steep dive when Obama took the helm AND that he was able to stop the hemorrhaging. One would think an elitist tenured professor such as yourself would understand a simple chart.

[Jimi]

"That visual shows that the present rate of job growth is on target with historic patterns."

What?.....Are we looking at the same data? The only way that statement becomes true is when Democrats and Obama are out of Power, and a pro-business, pro-capitalist comes to power to fix it.

[Jimi]

Dave,

"public sector losses"

The public sector has out grown the private sector two-fold. There has been no real "austerity measures," and if there had been they would be Democratic, because they control 2/3 the Government. Not one GOP piece of legislation has passed thru the Senate, and Obama has threatened veto on everything else. It doesn't surprise me that once again you don't know what your talking about, but haven't ever thought of getting the facts right so that you don't look so foolish?

[Stan Gibilisco]

Maybe Mr. Obama can say, "I had the good sense to stay out of the way of looming Irene (as it approached the nation's capital), but Rick Perry, the fool, passed up a perfectly good campaign opportunity to go straight into the middle of hell (Texas)."

[KB]

Donald and Bill: the current job loss dwarfs anything in the other recessions. It is twice as deep as 81-83 (previously the most severe) and has gone on now as long as 2001-005 (the 2nd longest in the chart). But at this point in that last recession, the line was almost back to its previous peak. Now the line is still at the bottom of the chart and has barely shown any recovery at all. Worse still, it appears to be flattening out rather than climbing. But good job trying to pub lipstick on the pig, guys.

Dave: you would think that any idiot knows that this chart tells you nothing about Obama's role in slowing or accelerating the recession. Just because we aren't in Road Warrior territory yet doesn't mean he is any kind of savior.

[Donald Pay]

KB,

You are, of course, right. The huge drop in jobs coincides with the mess created by the policies of the Republicans. Obama inherited a depression from your party's President. The fact that the mess created by your party was far more serious than other recessions is quite clearly pictured. And you are right, the job creation is lagging, an indication that (1) the stimulus was far too small and (2) the obstructionist policies of the Republicans in Congress and the poor policies of Republican governors are cause job creation to lag.

[Bill Fleming]

KB, on the contrary. It is BECAUSE the drop was so steep that the recovery seems so slow. All you have to do is mentally snip the black line at its lowest point (around 25), bring the right section up, and map it over the upswing in the last recession. You will see that the angle is approximately the same. It is the down side (left) of the curve that is off symmetry not the up side.

In other words, the RATE of recovery is similar to the last two, it's just that the rate of the initial drop and its duration was so much more extreme. Not saying that's good. Just true. If the last recession would have dropped that low, we probably still wouldn't be out of it.

[Jimi]

Donald,

"Obama inherited a depression from your party's President"

So what......Reagan and GW Bush inherited a recession from your parties President....didn't seem to stop them from recovering?

"The fact that the mess created by your party was far more serious than other recessions is quite clearly pictured"

Really? Why don't you name for us the specific policies that led to the point we are now?

"(1) the stimulus was far too small and (2) the obstructionist policies of the Republicans in Congress and the poor policies of Republican governors are cause job creation to lag."

And what kind of evidence do you have to support that?

[Bill Fleming]

(...this is why I would have made KB take a drawing class, had I been his professor. He's got problems with his sense of proportion. Not uncommon among left-brained thinkers. They only see what the voices in their heads tell them to, and tend to ignore the rest.)

[duggersd]

Donald and Bill:
As I look at this, I notice the steep decline began in 2007. Now, who controlled Congress in 2007? I believe the Democrats had the Congress in 2007. So, if the Dems had the Congress, who puts forth the spending bills? Who puts forth any legislation? I believe that would be the Dems. And, BTW, you will note that in 2007 we saw a corresponding increase in the deficit. Just sayin'.

[Jimi]

Bill,

"If the last recession would have dropped that low, we probably still wouldn't be out of it."

Are you familiar with the economic indicators? Go back and compare all of them with the past recessions at check points along the timeleine and tell me what you see. There is a reason they are so different....and it is called leadership....we have none, and that is why they are so different than the past.

And for the record.....is Obama's, the Democrats, and their supporters leadership strategy just to blame Republicans? Because that is what it appears to be. Weren't we told before the election that if we voted Democrat we would be saved from economic disaster? Were we not told that Democrats are thinkers and Republicans are evil? Isn't it time for you and your party to put up or shut up, considering it has been 3 1/2 years with no improvement, in fact all economic indicators propose things are getting worse?

http://www.investopedia.com/university/releases/#axzz1XDifs4VT

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: good try making up theories on the fly, but "It is BECAUSE the drop was so steep that the recovery seems so slow" is contrary to the evidence. The other two steep drops have relatively narrow bottoms. If this one were analogous, only larger, then the line should have started steeply up just after the common dimple. It doesn't. It turns lazy and then, recently, flattens out.

It is possible that you are right. If so, then job growth will surge pretty soon, exceeding all expectations. It will have to. Unless economic growth is faster than the average over the last few years, we won't return to the peak for decades.

[Donald Pay]

First, what I think is funny is how the righties are so blinded by their own idiocy and hate for Obama and the Democrats that they can't think straight about what these graphs say. There is a conservative way to interpret these graphs, but the righties here have taken their hate to a level that they have jettisoned a rational conservative explanation. If you can for an instant, think rationally about what those graphs mean. There are some pretty clear signals about economic cycles. Can you guess what a real conservative might conclude?

Second, look at the last three recessions (those following the Reagan/Republican economic policies of trickle down economics which has hollowed out of the middle class) compared to the recessions prior to that. You will notice that Republican policies that favored the rich over the middle class have had the effect of extending the time it takes to replace the jobs lost in an economic downturn, whether the President is Republican or Democrat. The problem of an extended tail of joblessness following a downturn is very long term problem that has been built into the economy through decades of Republican tax and trade policy. The job creators are in the middle class, not the wealthy and corporate elite. Republican policies have hurt the job creators and favored the non-job creators.

Obama can't do much about the damage the Republicans have done to the structure of our economy over the last thirty to forty years.

[duggersd]

But, but, but, Donald. I thought you told us Obama was governing like a Republican..... So are Obama's policies good policies or bad policies? You have me confused. A week or two ago, you had me believing Obama was a bad guy because he governed like Bush.
BTW, that is not trickle down economics. That was Rising Tide economics. And policies of the current administration favor non-job creators. Unions do not create jobs, they suck jobs from the economy. And extending unemployment only encourages people to not seek a job.

[Donald Pay]

In so far as Obama is following Republican/corporate elite/crony capitalist policies, his policies are bad. As I said, a lot of these bad policies have been baked into the economy and can't be changed overnight. Unfortunately, Obama is mostly in support of many of those policies, though I suspect he'd get rid of the Bush tax cuts to the super wealthy if he had the votes to do it. In order to make the economy hum, he's got to undo thirty years of bad policy that has hollowed out the job creating middle class, and provided a sense of entitlement to the speculator and corporate class. That's not going to happen overnight, mostly because his policies are pretty much down the line what the corporatists want. Even if he wanted to change those awful policies, he doesn't have the votes in Congress to do it.

[Stan Gibilisco]

If we want to go on assigning blame for the mess we find ourselves in, let's point our fickle fingers at our own selves, individually and collectively.

Yesterday, as I went around the house looking for mating spiders (no, not really!), I happened to overhear a commercial on the blaring boob tube, tuned, as I recall, to CNN. Somebody was assuring victims of an overzealous IRS that they could make arrangements with this or that or the other specialist, who would see to it that "you [the presumed delinquent] will only have to pay a fraction of what you owe."

Oh really! What a deal! Cheat the IRS legally! And who is the IRS, exactly? The tax man. The government. The people. The taxpayers. The honest taxpayers. The stiffs who pay what they owe.

So go ahead, don't pay your taxes. Hell, the bigwigs at the highest levels often don't, even the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee evidently didn't, even the Treasury Secretary allegedly didn't, even what's-his-name, oh ya, that benevolent Baron Warren Buffett, apparently didn't. Why should you? Cheat the tax man, the government, the people, the taxpayers, the honest taxpayers, the stiffs who pay what they owe. Then call this or that or the other specialist, who will make certain that you can get away with it.

I believe we might call this whole scenario a situation in which Peter robs Peter to pay Peter, and then tries to put the blame on anybody but Peter.

No wonder we see a graph like the one in this post. Or maybe we should wonder -- wonder why it doesn't "blow down" into a singularity like warped space at the edge of a black hole.

I contend that no solution to our economic woes will ever arise unless and until we, as a nation, and in fact all of Western civilization, changes its attitude, and gets over the notion that anybody can get something for nothing. When enough Peters rob enough Peters to pay enough Peters, no Peters will remain alive at the bitter end.

[Bill Fleming]

seems to me that sooner or later, DuggerSD and the GOP is going to have to quit playing the scissors/rock/paper game, and get down to business. Right now they have fingers pointing in both directions, first claiming congress is in charge, then whining that it's all the president's fault. That's just not how it works. Each has the power to block the other. Unless of course, they actually both get interested in solving the problem.

[Bill Fleming]

Stan, nothing sadder than a bunch of dead Peters.

[duggersd]

Well, Bill. There are medical solutions to your problem. Have you tried using that product that has two people in bath tubs?
About that getting down to business. Romney has posted his plan.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-05/Romney-My-10-point-plan-to-create-American-jobs/50265720/1
Senator Ron Johnson has concrete plans. I am sure Donald enjoyed this one. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/29/obamas-economic-policy-last-chance/?page=all#pagebreak
The House Republicans have offered plans. The Dems in Congress have not. President Obama offers speeches.

[Donald Pay]

Duggersd just proposed the last thirty years of Republican policy. Thanks for nothing.

[Donald Pay]

Still no takers on what a real conservative would say the graph above means?

[Bill Fleming]

DuggerSD, no I've not tried it. But glad to see you're happy with it. Of course in your case, you probably only need one tub.

[duggersd]

Um, I was not the one complaining of the problem, you were.....
Donald, of the last 30 years, 2001-2007 1/2 were pretty good. 1993-2000 were not too bad, especially after a change in Congress. 1982-1991 1/2 were pretty good. Your welcome.

[Bill Fleming]

...actually, no, DuggerSD, it was Stan who instigated the Peter patter.

[duggersd]

But it was you who brought up the double entendre. I figured you would not mention it if you did not have the problem. I am sorry you are so touchy about it. BTW, as to your comment, if I did have a need for the product, you can bet I would only need one tub. I have not understood what the deal is about two tubs.

[Donald Pay]

Duggersd.

You failed basic conservatism. Try again, if you dare. Just a hint: try to subvert the political implications and think just in economic terms. If you do that you will come up with quite a different answer.

Beyond that, your statements would be both factually wrong if you are speaking of the middle class, although you have to have access to other data to understand that. Of course Republicans like to view economic data through the lens of the elitist corporate class ignoring what happens to the middle class, so, if viewed through that lens, you are right.

[Dave]

Ken gets hammered and Jimi is his biggest supporter... Too funny!

[Ken Blanchard]

If I understand the dispute over the NYTimes' chart here, it goes something like this: because the job loss line of the current recession is the same shape as several past recessions, therefore it is the same thing. No worry. That is a like a doctor saying that a fever of 106 is the same as a fever of 102. Same curve, and you'll get twice as better!

I don't think it is hatred of Obama (I don't in fact hate him) that leads me to think that a job loss that is twice as bad as earlier recessions and that has gone on as long as the longest recent recession is more than twice as bad as those other recessions. Maybe the curve WILL bend up soon and jobs will sprout like mushrooms after a warm rain. That isn't showing signs of happening just yet, and there are a lot of reasons to doubt that we can return to the previous peak anytime soon.

Donald wants to blame this ALL on Republicans. I don't blame him. If I were in his shoes, I'd probably want to do the same. I think I would have the sense to resist the impulse. I don't blame this all on Obama. I said that he doubled down on Bush 43 policies, and I meant that. I think that those policies may have made the situation much worse. However, the underlying problems have been shaping up for a half century.

Still, Obama is President. Much as my spirited interlocutors want to absolve him of responsibility, the buck stops in his lap. This is HIS economy, not Bush's or Reagan's or Hoover's. He will have to run on it, and it is dreadful. His only hope is to demonize the Republican nominee. That may work. If it does, he had better hope the line curves upward fast. If it doesn't, his second term will be a disaster.

[Bill Fleming]

Pretty good summary KB. I have only one nitpick. You say, "His only hope is to demonize the Republican nominee." I don't think that's his only hope. I think his other hope is that the GOP and their Tea Party pets will wake up and work with him for the good of the nation. But then, maybe you know something about that side of the aisle that Obama and I don't?

[Dave]

A little confusing: "However, the underlying problems have been shaping up for a half century." OR "This is HIS economy, not Bush's or Reagan's or Hoover's."

BTW, you just confirmed that Obama has been leading with GOPer (Bush 43) policies, which I stated is why he is loosing support with Dems and independents.

But answer this: Which of the current GOP hopefuls would end or turn back the clock on the disastrous policies of GWB?

[Donald Pay]

I don't blame all this on Republicans. I blame this on the policies that have hollowed out the middle class and enriched the corporate leach class. These policies have been identified most with Republicans, because Reagan initially pushed this corporate friendly "voodoo economics," against the advise of more conservative, budget hawks in his own administration. Reagan also began the war on unions and the de-industrialization of America. Democrats have really not done much to reverse it, though Clinton did institute some minor corrections in tax policy that corrected the deficit issue. Clinton, however, was just as bad on trade as any Republican. It's as if the corporate leach class's motto is "buy American last."

[Ken Blanchard]

Dave: allow me to resolve your confusion. A presidents has to deal with circumstances that he is not responsible for. However, he is responsible for dealing with them. Does that help?

Bill: if you mean that the Tea Party folks and their representation in Congress might suddenly support the President and then he would be able to do wonderful things, I reply that I am doubly doubtful. The Tea Party is unlikely to suddenly decide that fiscal responsibility is irresponsible. If they did, it would cut the floor from beneath the Administration. If they don't have the Tea Party to run against, what would they talk about?

Donald: your political perspective has a great future behind it.