President Obama recently claimed the economy grew by some two millions jobs. This claim was on a seasonally adjusted basis to the middle of 2011. We expect politicians to put their best foot forward and also put the best face they can on their performance, however, as with all things to do with Obama, his rhetoric does not match reality. His claims typically come with an expiration date or a dictionary in liberal speak is needed to decipher his rhetoric into normal understanding. In Obama’s view of the world, we the average person are at fault for not properly understanding what he says, he can’t help if you are not of sufficient intelligence or understanding to grasp the reality of his statements.
Since it’s upon us to elevate our understanding, let’s examine the Bureau of Labor Statistics raw unmassaged numbers to see what actually happened since this recession took hold with a vengeance. Using 2008 as the base year we see some interesting things. Total Employment (total of full and part time workers) on an annual basis was 143,194,000 people holding jobs. In 2009 the first year of his presidency, total employment dropped to 137,775,000. 5,419,000 people lost their jobs in 2009. By 2010, having spent billions on stimulating the economy, and increasing the annual federal budget deficits by over a trillion dollars a year, total employment dropped to 136,858,000. Instead of creating jobs, the total number of people who lost their jobs cumulatively increased to 6,336,000 since 2008. So far by the numbers can you see where President Obama’s policies created 2 million jobs?
However, total employment as a number is vague since it includes both Full Time workers and Part Time workers. If you worked 1 hour a week, you are counted as equal to someone who works 40 in the BLS numbers that figure the unemployment rate calculation. Going back to the BLS numbers and splitting out the part timers to see actually how many full time positions there are (greater than 34 hours/week) we begin to see the full impact of President Obama’s policies. In 2008, there were 118,416,000 full time workers on an annual basis. In all of 2009 after the first year of Obama’s policy subscriptions there were 110,612,000 full time workers, in other words 7,804,000 full timers actually lost their jobs. By 2010 the work force shrank to 110,203 full time workers representing a cumulative loss of 8,213,000 jobs. Jobs that mostly had benefits like health insurance. By the way, you won’t hear this from the MSM because this doesn’t fit the Obama re-election narrative.
In 2008, on an annual basis there were 24,778,000 part time workers (1 – 34 hours/week). This number represents both those who did so for non economic reasons and those who due to circumstances losing their full time job took a part time to make ends meet. In all of 2009 influenced by Obama’s first year policy choices part time employment rose by 2,385,000 to 27,163,000. This increase we see was at the expense of full time employment since both Full and Total Employment dropped during this period. By 2010, part time employment settled down to 26,655,000, still cumulatively 1,877,000 greater than 2008. So, is this what President Obama is claiming as mission accomplished?
The question then becomes, is an increase in part time employment a legitimate sign of recovery and a bonafide improvement of jobs? Let’s look at the percentages. Full employment as a percentage of total employment dropped from 82.7% in 2008 to 80.5% in 2010 on an annual basis. Part time employment increased from 17.3% of all jobs in 2008 to 19.5% in 2010. These are not encouraging results especially when total employment is dropping.
If government policy is the prime mover of the economy as liberals claim, then by their own standards, President Obama’s policies have been a miserable failure. The reality is while governments can influence the economy, they can’t drive it. In our case, what ails the US economy is the policy subscriptions of the Obama regime. ObamaCare, the centerpiece of Obama’s policies, as it has come to be called puts a stiff penalty on any business who provides health insurance as a benefit. If it were not so, then why have over a 1000 businesses applied and received waivers from it’s provisions? The reality is for a business to avoid the health care penalty is to hire only part time workers. The facts speak for themselves here and quite clearly demonstrated by the hiring demographics.
Speaking of policies, it goes without saying that the Obama regime has done everything it can do to discourage domestic energy production in terms of oil and natural gas drilling. Thousands of jobs were lost to Louisiana due to the illegal permit ban on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Contrast this with North Dakota, where unemployment is at 3.2% as of May. Bismark, North Dakota has a 2.9% unemployment rate!! A drilling boom is underway on the Bakken Shale Formation. Of course, the government is actively attempting to discourage this development by making absurd claims that the Fracking process is polluting the water table. With around to $300 billion a year of our oil supplies being outsourced due to the reluctance of liberal Democrats and their allies in the environmental lobby to allow domestic drilling, as a result literally millions of high paying jobs were also outsourced along with that energy production. If the GDP of the US economy is approx. $15 trillion, that $300 billion represents 2% of the economic impact and roughly 2.7 million jobs shipped out of the country. Both the loss of the oil royalties and income tax revenue is considerable to the Treasury, yet we have Democrats clambering for a tax increase when literally billions are ripe for the picking.
The sad part demonstrating this failed policy is not one drop of oil was saved and worse, the environmental damage was greater than it would have been under the stricter US requirements if the drilling were done here. Apparently, it’s ok to damage the environment in a foreign country where it is not observed while making the superficial NIMBY claim you’re for the environment. Between the Ethanol scam which many environmental groups now admit doesn’t help the environment and the outsourcing of oil drilling which doesn’t reduce oil consumption, AGW is demonstrated to be revenue raising ploy by a government that is unable to sell a tax increase to a burdened public. This same nonsense is about to play out with the coal industry via EPA regulations. We know what ails the US economy, it’s called Barack Obama.
References:
- Table A-8. Employed persons by class of worker and part-time status
- Bakken Shale Formation
- Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas Monthly Rankings Not Seasonally Adjusted
- Weekly US Crude Oil Imports
- Current-Dollar and “Real” Gross Domestic Product
- Policy Failures