Unemployment Drops—Does Obama Deserve the Credit?

Burns me up when people say Obama has ruined the economy. In the last two months of 2008 we lost 802,000 jobs in November, 619,000 in December, over the whole Great Recession we lost 8.8 million jobs. We were hemorrhaging 500,000 to 750,000 jobs a month at the peak of the Great Recession which started about 4 months before Obama took office. Under Bush, the unemployment went up 3.5 percentage points from 4.3 To 7.8. The GDP was minus 6.3 percent for the last quarter of 2008. At its peak the unemployment rate was 10.1 percent and is now at 8.6, so a 1.5 drop and a mere .8 percent increase from what Obama inherited.

Last October we created 130,000 jobs, last month, looks like we have over 120,000. The GDP last quarter was 2 percent. That’s a 8.3 percent swing in to positive territory. (If it wasn’t for cuts in government spending, local, state and federal, the unemployment rate would look a lot better. We should tell our legislators for every government job you cut, you must create two non-government jobs.) The DOW is back in to 12,000+ territory, so almost double what it was at its lowest point, which was 6,000+. This is a remarkable turnaround from when folks were saying we were headed in to a Great Depression, which we avoided! Say what you will, but things have improved despite the huge stink bomb Bush 43 left at Obama’s doorstep.

Here’s the rub though, Presidents get way too much credit for the economy when it’s good and way too much blame when it’s bad. Our economy is dependent on the global economy, much of which is out of our control. Drought in Australia affects our economy, debt fears in Greece affects our economy, etc. Our economy is built on trends, we are moving away from blue collar jobs to jobs that require degrees. Manufacturing is doing more with less people because of robotics and improved mechanization and transportation. This self-inflicted crisis (see deregulation and how it ruined the global economy) came at the worst possible time, as baby boomers were retiring. Now people are having to work longer, so the normal attrition rate is not kicking in.

The Pubs have zero ideas on how to create jobs and zero proposals to balance the budget. If tax cuts were the answer, we’d have a ton of jobs right now. If spending cuts were the answer, every state that has slashed its spending should be enjoying a job creation wave and they are not. The Pubs think they can balance the budget with tax cuts and spending cuts and there’s not a competent economist that agrees with that. Cannot do it on spending cuts alone. Sorry, it’s a fact, not an opinion.

Bobbarooni of ID 7:38PM December 09, 2011