On Friday, President Obama went to California to support Senator Boxer's campaign, and this is what he said. I understand that during election times, facts are of little importance. That being said, I still find some of his remarks troublesome. Among other things, the president claimed that:
There's only one candidate who is fighting to create thousands of construction jobs all throughout California, rebuilding its roads and its bridges and its highways so that this great state has the best infrastructure in the world.
This fact is easy enough to check. Based on Recovery gov, we can see that the total number of jobs funded by ARRA contracts, grants, and loans in CA is 76,271.56. Yet of these jobs, the total number of construction jobs funded by ARRA contracts, grants and loans in CA is 5,806.99. It means that only 7 percent of the jobs paid for with stimulus money went to construction. Most of the other jobs were funded through the Department of Education.
Then there is this:
Job growth between 2001 and 2009 was the most sluggish since World War II, more sluggish than it's been over the last year.
Now, this is a strange statement considering that the average unemployment rate during president Bush's terms was 5.3 percent, as opposed to 9.6 percent. Also, between September 2003 and July 2007, there were 45 months of uninterrupted job growth. We are talking about 7.8 million jobs created during that time.
It's true that President Bush didn't create these jobs, because government can't create sustainable jobs. It is also possible that these jobs were only the product of the housing bubble. But whatever it was, it wasn't sluggish job growth.
More importantly, if we look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, in 2010, total job changes by months we see the following. After a few months of job growth between January 2010 and May 2010 (total growth: 1 million), the last four months have been bad for total employment. In June 2010, employment decreased by 175,000 jobs, in July 2010 by 66,000 jobs, in August by 57,000 jobs, and in September 95,000 jobs. That's a total loss of almost 400,000 jobs.
Interestingly, these jobs were lost in the public sector. That may be why in this video, Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, only uses private-sector job growth to discuss the Obama administration's role as job guru.
Now, let's look at private-sector job exclusively. The president says that between 2001 and 2009, job creation was sluggish, "more sluggish than it's been over the last year." Here again, I am not sure how he comes to this conclusion. Adding up private-sector job changes between February 2001 and January 2009, we find 7.6 million jobs. In 2010, the number of private jobs created amounts to 938,000:
Finally, while net private job creation between 2001 and 2009 is negative, it's not at bad as it has been since February 2009.
Bottom line: No matter how one looks at it, the president's remark seems hard to back with data.
Sent from my iPhone
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