Unemployment didn’t go up under Obama

[AC54ME]

Denial — it ain’t just a river in Egypt. Appearing on Fox News this morning, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz insisted that unemployment didn’t go up in Barack Obama’s term of office, a hilarious argument on several levels. Debbie Downer then lectures Gretchen Carlson that “your narrative doesn’t work any longer,” to which a bemused Carlson responds that she’s just relating the facts:

Here are a few facts that seem to have gotten past Wasserman Shultz as the head of a major political party, and as a member of Congress:

•Jobless rate in January 2009: 7.8%. Jobless rate in November 2011: 8.6%.

•Number of employed in January 2009, in thousands: 133,563. In November 2011: 131,708

•Civilian participation rate in January 2009: 65.7%. In November 2011: 64.0%

•Unemployment level in January 2009, in thousands: 11,984. In November 2011: 13,303

•Number of people not in labor force, January 2009, in thousands: 80,554. In November 2011: 86,558

The number of jobs has declined almost 2 million during Obama’s term even without accounting for the 3 million-plus working-age adults who joined the population while Obama has been President, while the number of people not in the labor force has risen by six million. To give some perspective to that number, it took this measure six years to add six million people (Feb 2003 to Jan 2009), while it took Obama less than three years to achieve it. It’s also worth noting that this growth in disconnected potential workers and the associated drop in the civilian-participation rate is almost entirely responsible for the published jobless rate being as low as it is, and the exodus of 315,000 workers from the workforce last month is certainly responsible for the drop that Debbie Downer heralds in this interview.

Maybe the DNC should consider having a chair who has some connection to reality. But what fun would that be for the rest of us?

DNC chair: Unemployment didn’t go up under Obama! « Hot Air

I wait for the conformation from Joecooool

[RedLS1GTO]

Where normal math uses numerators and denominators, liberal math uses sunshine and rainbows.

[Scissors]

Even when we ignore the easy-to-manipulate "unemployment" figure, we still see a loss of jobs, which has been ongoing since the employment peak of 2000, and which accelerated in late 2008 through 2010:
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat1.pdf

The percent of the adult (16 and up) non-institutional employed population, not seasonally-adjusted, reached a peak of 64.4% of the population in 2000. From 1947 to 1977 it was stone cold steady, hovering between 56% and 58%. From 1977 to 2000 it rose to its peak. Since 2000 it's been steadily and slowly declining. Then it drops like a rock beginning in late 2008.

Using this query tool we can also see that the overall percent of the population employed by the government has not increased since 2001 (includes all federal, state, and local). From 20,753,000 in Jan 2001 to 21,846,000 in Sep 2011. Or from 7.3% of the total population to about 7%, as the population rose from ~285 million in 2001 to ~310 million in 2011. If anything, government shrank during that period (again, as a percent of the total population).

Using this query tool found here we see that the unadjusted employment-to-population ratio (again, 16 and over) is hovering in the 62s in 2008 until July, when it starts to drop. First to 62.0 for Sep and Oct, then to 61.6 in Nov, then 61.0 in Dec, and so on until it hits 59.5% in Mar 2009. It then holds stead for a few months but begins its decline again in August, winding up hovering between 57.8% and 58.9%. As of Nov 2011, it's at 58.7%.

Which, in a historical context, is actually pretty average. That's better than what we saw at any point between 1947 and 1977. It's just bad when compared to the 1984 to 2008 timeframe.

[Scissors]

Speaking of employment, I saw a thing on public television yesterday at the tire store about the top marginal income tax rate versus job creation. I became curious, so I plotted both on a chart: