I just saw a tweet by Dan Diamond from politico that was retweeted by Nick Hanauer bragging about how under Obama, private sector employment has grown by 11.5 million jobs and under Bush it shrank by 300K jobs. Of course, what the partisan hacks ignore is the other side of the ledger, just like they always do.
Is adding 11 million jobs good or bad? It depends on the workforce denominator of course, which they never mention, so I will.
According to Fred, the 15-64 yr old "working population" grew from 180M in Jan 2001 to approx. 205M at present.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S
Thats 25 million more people in the working age population of which maybe 20 million need a job.
About 8.5 million during the Obama years and 16.5 million during the Bush years. or a net change in the the jobs\working age population ratio of -17 million under Bush and +3 million under Obama.
Why would this be something to brag about for Dems and Obama then? Why arent people out on the streets protesting that our so-called exceptional American economy has somehow managed to destroy the jobs to worker population ratio by some 14 million units in 15 years? We've fallen behind at the rate of almost 1 million jobs per year and yet twitter is agog with ignorant Dem hacks congratulating Obama that the jobs number went up by 153K in December when you need a minimum of 80k new jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. Even at 180K new jobs per month (100K net jobs\population increase), it will take 9 more years to get back to even relative to our jobs\population situation in the year 2000. Thats a quarter century lost by our so-called economic and political elites. Is it any wonder that the hoi-polli is starting to get pissed?
Quite right, Auburn. Was there anything good about Obama's two terms? It was nearly all bad. He ensured that there wasn't another depression, which is what the GOPhers may have engineered in their ideological stupidity. Given the problems he inherited, he turned out to be a very good captain of the USS Empire, and certainly a lot better than the bungling idiot who preceded him. That's a bad thing for America and the world. But on jobs, Obummer has been woeful. There's no getting away from that.
ReplyDelete"We've fell behind at the rate of almost 1 million jobs per year "
ReplyDeleteThat's probably the rate at which the illegals have been allowed to just walk right in...
Obama has been the most proactive in deporting "illegal" workers. There is only so much that can be done. Repealing Nafta, as Trump allegedly wants, would help reverse these numbers. But that would mess around with the neoliberal economic cult Washington has sworn allegiance to.
ReplyDeleteJohn , Trump is going to war with all of that...
ReplyDeleteIllegal immigration is for US firms, plain and simple. If firms were appropriately penalized, there would be very little illegal immigration. There could still be guest workers in areas where local employment is insufficient and it is not practical for citizens to move to for work.
ReplyDeleteThis is just a bullshit issue.
In addition, labor force participation rate has sucked too. It takes more than just glancing at some figure without taking into full account all the factors going on. Good analysis.
ReplyDeleteMatt, if Trump does, that's all to the good. If he doesn't then "illegal" workers are the fault of Washington demanding and enforcing policies that are ruinous to populations from Mexico and all the way south. In fact, the policies are ruinous to the American working class too, but they pale into insignificance compared to what they've done to Mexico. It's a simple cause and effect relationship. If you destroy the Mexican economy, which was the prediction that Nafta would have, "illegal" workers would be the result in the United States.
ReplyDeleteOne of the many effects of NAFTA was unemployment in Mexico due dumping to US taxpayer subsidizing corn, which led directly to a huge increase in illegal immigration. Shadowstats shows real unemployment hovering around 23%.
ReplyDeleteTom: "This is just a bullshit issue."
ReplyDeleteBut it has its uses. The GOPhers can cry bloody murder and start a culture war because the only policies they have enrich a small fraction of the population. The GOPhers long ago decided to can make elections about abortion (Christianity), crime (race), and Mexican gardeners, the media will stick to these subjects and ignore the ones that matter.
Noah, it also led to those farms being closed down and turned into drug plantations. This has made northern Mexico into a war zone. Nafta's great for gangster warlords, Wall Street and subsidised American farmers. Everyone else gets royally fucked over. Some get their heads hacked off by a machete-wielding gangster.
ReplyDelete