Friday, August 7, 2015

Obama's horrible, awful full-time jobs record

The numbers are out this morning and they are not pretty.

Full-time jobs for July 2015 registered at 123.142 million in the report today, not seasonally adjusted. The previous high for the measure was set, wait for it, way back in July 2007 at 123.219 million.

That means full-time jobs still have not recovered to the peak level set eight years ago. Examine the record of recessions since 1969 and you will see that full-time jobs always have bounced back to pre-recession levels after two to three years ... until now.

In fact there are today still 77,000 FEWER full-time jobs than there were eight summers ago. That means it will likely take until next summer to surmount the 2007 peak. That'll make it nine years, versus two to three normally.

Yes, there are 2.4 million more jobs today than there were eight years ago, but they are all part-time: 26.6 million part-time now vs. 24.1 million then, for an increase of 2.5 million part-time. Subtract the decline in full-time and you arrive at just 2.4 million more net jobs in eight years while the population has grown by 19 million.

Obama crows about the all the jobs he's created, but only out of the depths of their decline which he oversaw and did nothing to stop. Full-time jobs fell in a panic by 6 million in the three months from his election in 2008 to his inauguration in 2009, and by another 5 million in the next year.

Arguably all those jobs went away out of fear over what Obama would do to the economy, which after six full years of his maladministration has grown at its slowest pace in the post-war and 26% worse than for the same period under George W. Bush, a surprising outcome considering that there was nowhere to go but up once the economy had crashed.

If the Obama rate of GDP growth from the first six years of his tenure is sustained through the end of it, Obama GDP will underperform the previously worst record of George W. Bush by over 20%. And more than likely, full-time jobs will continue to suffer as a result.