A comprehensive look back at Obama's jobs record

[Berserker]

Since it's the end of his time in office, figured this might be an interesting article.

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-jo ... ate-2017-1

[MorGrendel]

Hmmm. Where are these 12 MILLION jobs? I have a bias that I actually think employment was best under Eisenhower, albeit many of those jobs were infrastructure jobs paid by the government and unfortunately not new private sector jobs. However, IMHO working part time as a census worker should not be considered Job Growth. We need more innovation and honestly, to overhaul our infrastructure.

I wonder what the numbers look like when you include soldiers and military contractor in job numbers (maybe they do, I don't think so though). Perhaps, Bush II would look different.

The table below lists the amount of private sector jobs created in thousands during each President’s tenure. Again, this table displays all private sector jobs; government sector jobs are NOT included (i.e., during the years Harry S. Truman was President (1946 – 1952), approximately 8.78 million private sector jobs were created). To see the raw data on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ website, use Series ID CES0500000001.

Jobs Created in Thousands President Political Party
6,566 Franklin D. Roosevelt Democrat
8,781 Harry S. Truman Democrat
1,556 Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican
2,729 John F. Kennedy Democrat
8,895 Lyndon B. Johnson Democrat
5,254 Richard Nixon Republican
2,235 Gerald Ford Republican
8,601 Jimmy Carter Democrat
13,621 Ronald Reagan Republican
1,084 George H. W. Bush Republican
19,662 Bill Clinton Democrat
-338 George W. Bush Republican
7,765 Barack Obama Democrat

To read additional information, click on United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[Berserker]

So maybe this is a better article from NPR. It seemed more clear and more comprehensive.

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/19/510491692 ... he-numbers

[MorGrendel]

Thanks for this. I don't know if it answers the above, but I love quick hits of info.

I have seen this before. I guess it is analytical, but I found the parameters extremely specific and could have been better articulated and explained as numbers by their nature are malleable.

For instance, I've been spouting that the Debt is 74% of GDP (which I got from some source I trusted), this source quotes 104.8% of GDP, and good ol' Wikipedia says "The U.S. increased the ratio of public and private debt from 152% GDP in 1980 to peak at 296% GDP in 2008, before falling to 279% GDP by Q2 2011."

I found that several of the source links went to the same materials, thus only giving the illusion of multiple sources. Also, the start and end points seemed to move without explanation.

That said, the layout is clean and concise, and bars any opinion. Economics and numbers are funny; by their nature they should be neutral, but man are they political. I think I'm just coming to the realization that not only are we never going to see that bank bailout money, but that we are setting up to do it again.

[Berserker]

yeah, its tough to get non-political numbers, and statistics can easily be spun to mean whatever folks want to. Heck even the CBO who is by definition non-partisan and very specific in what it does, is generally attacked by whichever side ends up looking bad whenever they score a proposal or bill (while the other side touts the report as the ultimate undisputable fact).

That's one reason why I'm a very big fan using the same measurements in whatever you measure. The measurement itself doesn't matter as much as that you use the same measurement over time so you can see accurate trends. Economic policy effects are seldom short-term, but act over long periods of time, so trends are very important to determine how good a policy is or not.

For example, take the debate about unemployment where at the same time depending on who you ask, you hear that unemployment is 5%, 10%, 20% or anything in between. That's all good, as each one of those folks use a different measurement to come up with their result. The problem comes when they try to compare that result with the past and you hear that during the Bush administration, unemployment was 4%, but now it's 20% under Obama, therefore a terrible president. However, the 4% measurement used for Bush years would tell you that today unemployment is perhaps 6%, not 20%. If you compare it to the measurement that gives you 20%, the trend is lost and your conclusions end up skewed. Does it make sense what I'm trying to say?

So to bring this back, I think this is what all these reports suffer from. This report talks about debt to GDP as 104%, your source as 74% and wiki as 279%. All may be correct based on how they are measured. But what is important is to use that same exact measurement, when you compare over time to draw accurate conclusions. e.g. Did a policy help or hinder? Is our debt growing at a faster rate or slower rate that in previous years? etc