It's almost better that during the election we had a net loss of jobs. Imagine if Bush were running on having created 50,000 jobs in just four years...

If this pathetic performance is what Republicans call a good economy, then we are all in trouble.

Other then White House staff, how much control does the President really have on the job market?

Exactly.

Jason

NeilS -

Well, if it hadn't been for that little speedbump called 9/11, and the fact that we were slipping into a recession BEFORE Bush took office, you might have a point.

As it is, you're just plain blunt.

J.

Well, he's still 92,000 jobs short; so he hasn't made it to even yet. More to the point, though, due to pupulation growth more than 140,000 jobs have to be created each month just to keep pace. So no matter the job performance for the next month or so, Bush will end up being well over 6 million short of even.

As for the 9/11 excuse, it was the best thing that ever happened to Bush as it allowed him to receive a vote total close enough to steal yet another election -- which is why he allowed the attacks to occur in the first place.

And we were not slipping into a recession before the 2000 election. Growth had slowed somewhat from their ultra high points of preceeding months, but the economy was still strong and growing.

Kerry misrepresnted the economy? Try Don Evan's "best economy in my lifetime". Employment growth has been truly awful over the past four years.

Jay, put down the pipe and step away from the bong, slowly.

I think you had a typo here: 132,167 millon would be 132 billion jobs. Too high.

I discovered the error as I was reading your post into today's Podcast. Listen if you get a chance.
Charlie

As a bunch of people have pointed out in other forums, starting from January 2001 is really crack(-piped) up. Unless Bush is the Dark Lord and his very presense has an effect on the job market, you need to start from January 2002 -- when his policies would actually start taking effect.

For people who's primary source is not the DNC, try the following exercise: go to http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

Then select "total private seasonally adjusted" then press "retrieve data" (don't include government otherwise you'll accidently much more positive job growth numbers). Take the difference of projected Nov 2004 minus January 2002 and you find an increase of about 1.3 million jobs.

jayarbee says: And we were not slipping into a recession before the 2000 election

The issue is what impact Bush's policies had on the economy. By the time his policies were in place, the recession was in full swing.

pgl says: Employment growth has been truly awful over the past four years.

A detailed look at the numbers (can't display them graph form here, sorry) shows a sharp dive starting around January 1 2001 and ending around January 2002, nicely bracketing Clinton's legacy period. The jobs are relatively flat (slight downslope) until around mid-summer 2003, then jobs grow at pretty close to their historical values.

Actually, in october I showed how we've had net job growth since December '03 Net Job Growth?

And another thing: 483 thousand jobs were added in total, the 112 thousand jobs statistic was off the Payroll survey, which is very inaccurate when answering the question "how many people are working?"

This is why the "jobs" report was so low but the unemployment rate simultaniously dropped a percent. Job creation in total outpaced employment pool.