U.S. Job Creation by President/Political Party

[expat_panama]

...not sure what exactly you're trying to say hasn't been seen since the depression.

It may be a math/numbers thing so let me know if I'm not explaining it right.

In post #6 I looked at the bls site and "Data Type ALL EMPLOYEES, THOUSANDS; Series Id: CES0500000001". Then I realized that with this timescale we're talking exponential growth so in post #8 I took the same numbers and plotted it with the Y axis in log scale. When it looked like we had 60 years of consistency beginning and ending with anomalies, I added a trend line that showed how employment had grown steadily at three percent yearly but that growth had fallen to a level below that growth that hadn't appeared since 1939.

I'll mark on the graph what I mean:

 

[Trajan]

whenever I see a link to a site calling itself " truth" something or or has "truth" in its name, I am like oh oh......


anyway, much ado about nothing, was there some big revelation here?

 

[pinqy]

...not sure what exactly you're trying to say hasn't been seen since the depression.

It may be a math/numbers thing so let me know if I'm not explaining it right.

In post #6 I looked at the bls site and "Data Type ALL EMPLOYEES, THOUSANDS; Series Id: CES0500000001". Then I realized that with this timescale we're talking exponential growth so in post #8 I took the same numbers and plotted it with the Y axis in log scale. When it looked like we had 60 years of consistency beginning and ending with anomalies, I added a trend line that showed how employment had grown steadily at three percent yearly but that growth had fallen to a level below that growth that hadn't appeared since 1939.

I'll mark on the graph what I mean:

Ok, I see what you did. I'm not sure it's a valid operation, though (mostly because I've never heard of anyone else doing it). I think there's just too many other factors involved. For example if the labor force increases does the increase in supply allow more jobs to be created, or will that just force more unemployment? The answer is "Both, it depends." Does degree of attachment to the Labor Force matter? For example, the employment-population ratio has been shrinking, but looking at the Labor Force Flows we see that a significant number of people are losing/leaving their jobs and are not looking for work. If these are people that are loosely attached (students, secondary earners, retirees etc) that's a different matter than primary wage earners, and the economy can easily afford to lose those jobs without any major effect.

And changing social dynamics play a part...labor force participation increased greatly in the late 60's and early 70's and continued to grow until recently. This was because of the increase of women into the labor force. Recently, labor force participation has dropped, but how much meaning does that have when the economy managed fine with an even lower participation rate in the 50's and 60's?

So I think that trying to track what job growth "should be" is just too compplicated to really try.

 

[Toro]

I hate these types of threads because they are simplistic and do not take into account lags and other dynamics which affect different markets. (Though I do start such simplistic threads, I do so to refute arguments, not support them.)

For example, deficit spending can boost employment markets, but there can be a drag in subsequent years as the deficit is reigned in which slows employment growth.

For example, in the 00s, by some estimates, as many as 40% of the jobs created were due to the housing bubble. That's nearly 4 million jobs that were created but of which a large amount, perhaps 3 million, should never have existed. Those jobs are not coming back. So the creation of a massive and artificial bubble makes the numbers look better than they really should, and makes job creation in subsequent years look even worse than they should. So employment growth under Bush looks better than it should.

But it looks better under Bush because the housing bubble was an outcome of the tech bubble. So Bush was left with a mess that wasn't of his doing whereas Clinton looks better than he should because of the tech bubble, which artificially inflated the economy.

 

[expat_panama]

...if the labor force increases does the increase in supply allow more jobs to be created, or will that just force more unemployment?

We're not talking about the Labor Force; that's the number of people who want work. We're talking Total Employment; that's the number of people who have work.

...Recently, labor force participation has dropped, but how much meaning does that have when the economy managed fine with an even lower participation rate in the 50's and 60's....

Good question, but if we stick to 'total employment' and not "Labor Force" then we can go back to 1890:

We're together with the idea that lot's of things can affect the %population employeed, including demographics, cultural trends, the economy, and look what WWII did!

 

[expat_panama]

...Bush was left with a mess that wasn't of his doing whereas ...

Obama keeps whining about the mess he got stuck with and the fact is that cleaning up messes is number one on the job description, it's precisely what hired help is for.

It's interesting how similar the situations were in both 2001 and 2009. Getting over a big stock market crash, contracting economy, and both elections had huge real estate crashes (even though the first was caused by Osama and the second was caused by Barny Frank).

GWB wasn't afraid to grab a mop, lower taxes, and move forward and having Ted Kennedy write GW''s centerpiece legislation (No Child Left Behind). Obama fought for tax hikes and made sure Obamacare was 100% Democrat.

 

[Toro]

...Bush was left with a mess that wasn't of his doing whereas ...

Obama keeps whining about the mess he got stuck with and the fact is that cleaning up messes is number one on the job description, it's precisely what hired help is for.

It's interesting how similar the situations were in both 2001 and 2009. Getting over a big stock market crash, contracting economy, and both elections had huge real estate crashes (even though the first was caused by Osama and the second was caused by Barny Frank).

GWB wasn't afraid to grab a mop, lower taxes, and move forward and having Ted Kennedy write GW''s centerpiece legislation (No Child Left Behind). Obama fought for tax hikes and made sure Obamacare was 100% Democrat.

There was not a big real estate crash in 2001.

The recovery in 2003-07 was the weakest on record since WWII. I don't fault Bush for this but cheerleading one over the other and stating there is a markable difference isn't a serious argument.

 

[Two Thumbs]

It's not just the Pres that can affect employment numbers.

W/o factoring in who was in control of congress, at the same time, this has little meaning.

 

[expat_panama]

...both elections had huge real estate crashes (even though the first was caused by Osama...

There was not a big real estate crash in 2001....

Sure there was, and in many ways the 'crash' [To break violently or noisily; smash.] of the 'real estate' [Land, including all the natural resources and permanent buildings on it] was far worse with thousands killed and treasure permanently lost.

The recovery in 2003-07 was the weakest on record since WWII....

The recovery begun with the '03 tax cuts had a recovery with all time high gdp, manufacturing output, and wealth creation. Beats the hell out of the recovery begun in '09 with double digit unemployment, shrinking wealth and gdp, and tax hikes.