The lowest jobless claims yet still don't yield the lowest unemployment levels under Bush.
As I pointed out here, jobless claims for 2014 are probably going to finish the year at the 15.7 million level, not-seasonally-adjusted. The comparable year under Bush was 2006, coincidentally also his sixth year in the presidency, when there were 16.2 million similarly measured jobless claims. That's as low as claims ever fell under Bush in absolute terms, and as low as they've been in this century, until now.
So things are better under Obama, right, because claims are going to be the lowest yet this century?
The civilian labor force level was 152.6 million in November 2006, almost 10 million higher than when Bush was first elected, but only 3.7 million higher now at 156.3 million as of November 2014. So claims were 10.6% of the civilian labor force in 2006, and 10.0% of the civilian labor force in November 2014, so yes, things are marginally statistically better, but still very close.
But what's not close is the unemployment rate, or the unemployment level. Not-seasonally-adjusted the rate was 4.3% in November 2006, but 5.5% in November 2014. The civilian labor force has barely grown by 1.7 million after six years of Obama, yet the unemployment level is still 2.05 million higher today than it was in November 2006 when first time jobless claims were at their lowest level before now.
You could almost say Obama sent the few people he's added to the labor force since 2008 straight to the unemployment lines. The other 8 million or more sent themselves straight out of the labor force, never to be counted as unemployed again.
