Talk Elections

In addition to the September Jobs report to be released Friday (WSJ estimate is 145,000 - depressed +/- 50,000 or so by the Florida Huricanes) an additional wrinkle is that one years worth of payroll data is also beiong revised by the BLs.

According to the WSJ, there will be an upward revision of something from 288,000 to 384,000 in addition to the new September jobs..

This would give Bush a "number" for this years Job creation to proclaim that would be +/- 400-500K higher.

In reality, this is not a story, in the sense that no 'real" jobs are created - folks who got an underreported job in Dec 2003 still got the job, etc...  But it certainly may have a political impact...

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The jobs debate heats up this week, with the White House expecting that revised payroll data to be released Friday will put a shine on President Bush's record of helping the economy create new jobs.

Friday's data will be the last released before the Nov. 2 election. While markets will focus on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' jobs report for September, politicians might pay more attention to revised data for the period from March 2003 through March 2004.

A memo from the president's Council of Economic Advisers estimates that the payroll employment figure for that period could be revised upward by 288,000, and conceivably by as much as 384,000. [/i]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB109693799501436155,00.html?mod=todays%5Ffree%5Ffeature

I forgot all about this! Thanks for posting it! :)

Vorlon, the graph, please.  :)

If that happens, I think it is great particularly the night of the debate. However, the truth is the Commission that set the dates should not have picked a day where major economic data was released particularly unemployment since it's an issue in campaign.  Hope the numbers are strong, otherwise it's a boom-a-rang

What are people making, is it still $9,000 less than the jobs we lost? 

That's a highly questionable and likely bogus number that no one's accepted against the DNC.

It's obvious that the economy is roaring, and I expect by 2010 we'll be doing better than the 90s. Of course, Kerry's election could slow it down a lot, but I don't think it's going to happen.

When slick Willie was running in 1996, 5.4% unemployment was a booming economy.  I'm sure all these people when they got jobs got a hefty raise, sign-on bonus, and a four year guaranteed employment contract.

Give me a break, throughout our history the unemployed when they find jobs usually make less. 

The strenght of the economy can't just be measured by unemployment.  A lot of people who are employed are underemployed...they are working below a decent living wage, have no job security, no pension, and no health benefits. 

Has anyone done an evaluation of the GINI coefficient of our current economy compared to four years ago?....that would definitely be interesting to see.

And then of course there is that old favorite of conservatives, the stock market.  How is that going for you guys?

Four years ago there hadn't been a recession yet (well, actually it was just starting).

The underemployed thing is basically a lie.

The numbers also miss self-employed people.

It is Kerry who harps on employment rate/jobs. Pass the GINI coefficient of the current economy argument to Kerry for the next debate.

Now you are correct about the underemployed, job security and no benefits.  Now what does that have to do with the President of the US and what public policies does Kerry espouse to fix it?  Raise taxes on income above 200K.  That will also impact small business employers( yes, subchapter S corps are taxed at personal rate).

The numbers have always missed self-employed people, right?  They also have always missed people who are unemployed but who have given up looking for work.  I'm not sure if either of these numbers is higher now than at other points in history.

Do you deny that the average wages and benefits among the middle and working classes have declined in the last four years?

Self-employment is being a bigger part of our economy. And I see that as a good thing.

There are 2 major employment figures; Democrats always cite the one without self-employed people (because of course its a lower number).

The better number shows substantial job growth in the last year and a half, as well as a net gain under Bush (ahead of population growth).

Wages have moved based on a variety of factors, but

a) no, I don't think they've gone down if you make relevant comparisons

b) the hardest hit segments in recent memory are airline pilots and doctors (aside from a few specialties), both of which of course are upper middle/upper class professions

In any case, there is no reason on Earth Bush should lose to Kerry on economic issues. It's just laughable to think a tax-raising, anti-reform, pro-regulation, pro- and anti-trader could cite his domestic platform as a reason to support him. Seriously, anyone that says raising taxes will help the economy is one of two things:

1) an idiot

2) a liar

I tend to consider Kerry (2).

Even if some really rosy job numbers come out coincidentily *cough**cough* right before the election, there's no way that it will change the fact that the number of jobs in America has gone down under Bush (currently 900,000 in the hole), in the first Presidential loss of jobs since Hoover. Every Democratic President for 40 years (LBJ, Carter, Clinton) has had a net increase of around 10 million jobs per term. Why couldn't Bush create anywhere close to 10 million jobs, let alone break even?

If "cough cough" is to be believed, then they could very easily show up 1% unemployment.

Household survey shows net gains. Recession inherited.

Unemployment figures don't count a lot of unemployed people

The official unemployment figures were 5% or so when Bush took office (admittedly the true values were probably a bit higher)
The labor pool needs to increase by 150,000 jobs per month.
Bush lost 900,000 jobs in those 44 months. We're 9 million jobs off from where we need to be.  That's about 6% of jobs

5%+6%=11%

Ouch

Recession inherited.

I thought it was a "cough cough" survey. If that's the case, expect 1% unemployment.

Granted, you'd still whine that it wasn't counting people or whatever the hell.

Inherited from who? It started March 2001, right when that tax cut that was supposed to help the economy was passed. And where are you getting these 1% unemployment figures? The long-term unemployed, even if they are looking for a job, and people who just graduated who never had a job, ARE NOT COUNTED AS UNEMPLOYED.

The Bush budget did not go into effect until FY 2002.    Are you seriously implying that a budget that is not yet passed in full nor implememted in any part caused the recession?

Some say it started in March. Others say October.

It doesn't actually matter, because no Bush economic policy had gone into effect and anyone who watched the news knew we weren't in good shape heading into the election and beyond.

Who knows what caused it, but the point is, Clinton created 11 million jobs per term. Even if Bush got a bit of bad luck, he should have been able to create a few million jobs.

Those 22.7 million Clinton jobs and  that $87 billion surplus were destroying America.

The government can't really do anything about private-sector unemployment.  But it can combat underemployment, which has been a bigger problem recently by doing, among other thing:

- Raising the minimum wage
- Increasing welfare and unemployment benefits
- Enacting universal healthcare

To do this, the government will need to raise taxes.  So yes, raising taxes can help the economy.

Clinton rode the tech bubble until it burst his last year.  He had no clue what to do then, but did not care either since he was going out.

You want a good economy all around?  Get a moderate President and a conservative congress.  You want one with potential explosive growth but with plenty of pitfalls along the way?  All conservative.  You want to ruin your economy, possibly for a very, very long time?  All liberal.

Clinton created 11 million jobs in his first term with no tech bubble. Every Democratic President for 80 years has had jobs created at a faster rate than every Republican President for 80 years. I don't think that's a coincidence. The amount of months spent per year in recession are less the more control the Democratic Party has, and are the worst when the GOP controls everything. Except for a 6 month recession under Carter, not 1 recession has started under a Democratic President since 1947.

What's Clinton's company? He apparently has a lot of employees.

Raising minimum wage; ok
So let's raise taxes really high, then we can afford to help those people
   who lose their jobs better; no sale that doesn't create jobs.
HillaryCare; no thank you.  Temporary safety net for the uninsured; ok but

Hmmmm....Upward revision of jobs data.  Could this be a Rove surprise?  Rover claimed to have something up his sleeve, could this be one of thsoe things?

What condition was the economy in within 6 months of the end of every democratic White House?  Seriously, look it up.  Since the Great Depression the democrats have letft the economy in dire straits for the Republican who replaces them.

Republicans win when the economy is screwed and fix it.  When the econnnomy is good again, the democrats come in, ride the good times and ruin it for the next Republican to fix.  It's practically the business cycle.

Why is it that every Republican President since Eisenhower has inherited a ressession from a Democrat President?

Even Bush and Ford? ;)

Bush's  recession started 2 months into his Presidency.
Carter's 6 month recession ended in 1980
LBJ and Clinton had a lot of economic boom

Probably because the economy is good for most of the time that the Democrat is in, and thus is bound to eventually go down a little at some point. Thus it's technically on the downswing, but only after having gone up so far first.

Why is it that the deficit is always better when a Democrat is in office, and worse when a Republican is in office? Why is it that Democratic presidents have consistently had a better record of job creation during their tenures than Republicans for 75 years? Must just all be a huge coincidence.

What makes you think that any of these things will help the economy?

80 years :)

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It's all in here:

http://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=CES0000000001&output_view=net_1mth

Why is it that there is always a up-swing in economic growth during the final term of a Republican Administration and why does this trend always continue onto the first term of a Dem administration only to go down at the end?  We saw this with Carter, we saw this with Clinton, we saw this with LBJ.

They may not increase the rate of total economic growth, but this is not the big problem with our economy right.  The biggest problem is that the direction of our economy is really punishing the poor and working class, and these measures would help the people who aren't benefiting from the current economy.   Our economy can't really be considered in good shape while so make people are struggling....right now inequality is a much bigger issue than growth.

Sure, there's an economic upswing near the end of the GOP term. Again, the business cycle kicks in eventually, just as it does with Democrats, causing the economy to eventually settle down after long growth.

The chart that Jfern posted doesn't lie. You can explain away an individual case here or there, but the evidence is just too much over the course of 80 years time to be that consistent.

Exactly. The economy is growing, but it is mostly going into the hands of a select few. Economic growth under Democratic administrations is much more equitably distributed generally speaking. That's better for the economy in the long term, to raise the fortunes of those on the bottom more relative to those on the top.

Let's refute this.
Using those job numbers,
1960 (Eisenhower) -0.8%
1961-1968 (JFK and LBJ) at least 2.1% each year
1968 (LBJ) 3.5%
1969 (Nixon) 2.9%
1970 (Nixon) -0.6%

That seems to break your pattern. I will admit that Carter and Clinton's worst numbers were the last year, but those were still postive, and other years of their Presidency were quite good.

You've just posted two excellent reasons not to vote for Kerry.  His proposals won't stimulate economic growth and he will raise taxes not to stimulate it.

Here's another way to look at the numbers:
Post-war with 1 year lag on the terms

Truman 1946-1949 2.82%
Truman 1950-1953 3.42%
Eisenhower 1954-1957 1.37%
Eisenhower 1958-1961 1.17%
JFK/LBJ 1962-1965 3.25%
LBJ 1966-1969 3.40%
Nixon 1970-1973 2.35%
Nixon/Ford  1974-1977 2.0%
Carter 1978-1981 1.85%
Reagan 1982-1985 2.1%
Reagan 1986-1989 2.47%
Bush 1990-1993 0.77%
Clinton 1994-1997 2.62%
Clinton 1998-2001 1.27%
Bush 2002-2003 -0.20%

The 2001 numbers hurt the 1998-2001 numbers a lot.  Well, not Clinton's fault, 9/11 changed everything, right?
Anyways, only Carter and Clinton 2nd term numbers are worse than any Republican term.

Maybe 6 month lag would be more usefull.....

Allow me to explain this chart

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Well, you cannot really count Roosevelt because things couldn't have gotten much worse during the Depression and the war certainly created a lot of jobs.  So there is one gone.

We then go onto Truman.  Most of what Truman gained was nherited from FDR.  The Truman administration saw the worst Recession until Carter and at the end the economy was just abismal.  Can't blame Truman for this, though, it was the post-war bust.

Kennedy cut taxes!!!!!!!  A lot!!!!!!!  And put in place a lot of good reforms to keep things running.

LBJ just inherited what Kennedy did and by the end of his term we were once again in recession because of Veitnam and the Great Society.

Nixon attempted to remedy this, but rapid inflation caused by global problems and years of post-war economic bust caused problems for both he and Ford yet they still managed 3.3% jobs growth.

Carter's first two years were marked by jobs growth.  His last two were marked by the biggest recession in the 20th century.

Reagan inherited this recession, but still managed to create 20 million new jobs by the time he was out.

The Pacific Rim Market Crash ruined the first two years of the Bush 41 Presdency, but it is now a proven fact that the economy was growing during the last 8 months of his Presidency.

Clinton was in the right place at the right time.  He benefited from the lift at the end of Bush's term and also from the changing economy and new technology that gave a massive lift to the economy.

However, towards the end, the "Clinton" economy began to slow down and by Jan 2001, before G.W. took office, slipped into recession.  Jobs growth should have out paced jobs loss, but guess what?  9/11 happened.

At anyrate, the jobs are coming back and, if you believe the Democrat, these figures are insignificant anyway, because the number of jobs matters nothing, now that Bush is adding jobs, it is the quality.

Those are the per centage increase job numbers per year. You can't add Nixon and Fords numbers, that's a meaningless statistic.
FDR averaged a 5.3% increase per year over 12.1 years, which is simply amazing.  Truman still beat the average even after FDR had created so many jobs. FDR and Truman about doubled the jobs in their 20 years.  Sorry, 1968 and 1969 had good job gains, LBJ did not leave us in bad news job wise. You are right that 1980-1982 were bad for jobs, but if you think that compares to the Hoover adminstration, you're smoking crack.  Reagan/Bush averaged only 1.6% per year for their 12 years. Increase in 2000=1.5%. Increase in the last 12 months now (about the only 12 positive months for Bush)=1.3%.  And that 1.5% was by far Clinton's worst year, and in fact is the 3rd worst year of any post-WWII year under a Democratic President.

As for JFK tax cuts, the top marginal rate was an effective 87% his whole Presidency. The top marginal rate was 70% or more for 1936-1980.

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

Exactly. These are per year averages, so you can't spin it away by saying that LBJ had a couple bad years or Carter had a couple bad years, those are already being factored into the chart.

And likewise, you completely discount FDR's tremendous job creation. Sure, the depression left a lot of room for improvement, but who put us in that mess? Coolidge mostly, and then Hoover failed in his attempts to pull us out. You conveniently left them out of your analysis.

Adding Nixon and Ford's numbers show that you either don't understand the chart, or are trying to spin.

Yes, the war helped FDR.

But the same goes for the 9/11 effect. Yes, the attacks themselves hurt the economy, but the recovery effort and the wars that we have fought since have helped the economy. You can't have it both ways, saying that Pearl Harbor was good for the economy but 9/11 was bad for the economy.

I'm not saying that there aren't external factors in all of these that are to a certain extent beyond the President's control, but the per year average figures don't lie. They can't all be explained away as coincidence. That's spin. The cold hard facts are that Democrats create a better environment for job creation to take place.

The recession started two months in. Bush's tax cuts hadn't come in then.

I'd say 9/11 prolonged the recession. The difference between 9/11 and Pearl Harbour is that Pearl Harbour damaged the US militarily, while 9/11 damaged it financially.

Of course numbers of jobs will generally increase as population increases. Such charts need to be treated with scepticism.

Iraq war is damaging US financially a lot more than 9/11.

But this chart goes by percentage increases, and thus remains consistent throughout the years.

Republican presidents inherit recessions from Democratic presidents all the time.


No, it's not

As for this chart.  You can't really coutn FDR, Truman, or LBJ since they had wartime economies.

You can't count Carter, because the result of his policies was to creaqte high inflation, which more than offsets the disparity in job creation.

This leaves us with tax cutter Kennedy and free trader Clinton.

I'll take that.  The chart shows that free trade and low taxes creates jobs.

You forgot to mention that Clinton raised taxes. And FDR, Truman, and LBJ can't be completely discounted on the basis of the wars alone. Yes, the wars helped, but certainly did not count for all or even most of the job creation.

As you note, Clinton and Kennedy were the most economically conservative of the Democratic Presidents, and also had the lowest percentage jobs growth of any Democrat (though of course still more than any Republican).

Kennedy cut taxes down to 70% for the top income bracket. I would have agreed with those tax cuts too, 91% was too high, but a 70% rate seemed to work pretty well.

Spending on wars does create jobs, but not nearly as many as could be created if the money was spent somewhere else. It's an inefficient way to create jobs since it produces nothing of direct value to this country in terms of products and services; they have little to no long term value to the country. The defense industry benefits, but the government could spend the money more productively elsewhere if job creation truly is the goal.

Republicans inherit recessions. Every time.

I have followed jfern's link to the Bureau of Labor Statistics site and tried to duplicate the chart's numbers.  I can't get it to agree.  For example, using Reagan (1981-1988), I get about 2.6%.  Maybe I am doing something wrong.  Has someone duplicated the results?

The chart itself comes from a pro Democrat shill site (www.americanassembler.com).  The chart also has -9% for Hoover, when the Bureau of Labor site that is linked only goes back to 1939.  I am not rejecting the number, only indicating that the source of the American Assembler chart may be different from the stat link provided.

If someone has duplicated the numbers, let me know how.  It is a cool site.

Nym,

After 7 years of the New Deal, the unemployment rate had fallen from 25% to 17%.  In the next two years, war industry got it down to 9%.  Two years of war industry had the same impact on unemployment as 7 years of public works.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure war industry creates most of these jobs.

Johnson also cut taxes, and Clinton did the same (cap gains tax in 1996).  A high tax Republican (Ike) and a tax hiking Republican (Bush I) had among the lowest job creation rates, so there goes any link between high taxes and job growth.

The simple explaination for this chart, assuming it legit, is that Democrats create more jobs but also create more inflation.  If you are willing to trade a marginal change in job creation for a major change in inflation, then vote Democrat.  Liberal policies have a consistent impact, and so do conservative policies.  If you think its a good trade, vote Democrat, if you don' think its worth it, vote GOP.

Here's how you get it. Go to formatting options. Change it to 12 month percent change. Add up all of the December values for 1981-1988, and divide by 8. I got 2.05%. That link has all of the data 1939 and later. This has all of the President's data from either BLS or the Economic Policy Institute.

Oh, and to be fair to Bush, he's now only 900,000 jobs in the hole and has a annual increase of -0.26%


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Thanks Jfern.  I recalculated using your method and doublechecked by computing CAGR's for each presidency.  The numbers are on target.

There is something else to consider.  Unemployment rates.  Bush's first two years were better than Clinton's first two years.   His third year was worse.

Is creating positions necessarily good if there are no workers there willing to take them?

I expect it to return to the mid-50s immediately following the election.

I mean sure at some point, if employment is too high, you might run out of qualified workers. Often there are qualified workers, but for whatever reason, the companies don't find them - good example: Silicon valley in the middle of the Dot COM boom. I'll give you that a lot of unqualified people were hired, but there were qualified people out there.

But anyways, in Jan. 2001, the unemployment rate was 4.2%. That doesn't count a lot of people - people who are long term unemployed, people who just graduated, and so on, even if they're trying to find a job. Since Jan. 2001, the potential labor pool has increased by 44 months * 150,000 jobs per month = 6.6 million people. We lost 900,000 jobs. So 7.5 million more people are unemployed. Somewhere around 140 million people exist in the potention labor pool, so there was about a 5% increase in the effective unemployment rate, so true unemployment is at least 9% , probably higher.