More jobs might be created this year than during George W. Bush's presidency.

[nmbluesky]

f the economy produces jobs over the next eight months at the same pace as it did over the past four months, the nation will have created more jobs in 2010 alone than it did over the entire eight years of George W. Bush's presidency.

That comparison comes with many footnotes and asterisks. But it shows how the economic debate between the parties could look very different over time -- perhaps by November, more likely by 2012. More important, the comparison underscores the urgency of repairing an American job-creation machine that was sputtering long before the 2008 financial meltdown.

First, the numbers: From February 2001, Bush's first full month in office, through January 2009, his last, total U.S. nonfarm employment grew from 132.5 million to 133.5 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's an increase, obviously, of just 1 million. From January through April of this year, the economy created 573,000 jobs. Over a full year, that projects to 1.72 million jobs. Job-creation numbers are notoriously volatile, so the actual result could run above or below that estimate. But Obama administration economists are increasingly optimistic that job growth this year will exceed expectations. Few of them will be surprised if more jobs are created in 2010 than over Bush's two terms.

Read More:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20100515_5237.php?mrefid=site_search

[bigdarryl]

1. There have aready been more jobs under Obama MIGHT MY ASS!!!!

[midnight]

2. This paragraph is a bit troubling.

Bush's total, of course, was suppressed by the slowdown he inherited from Clinton and the full-scale meltdown during his last year. But even during the recovery in between, job growth lagged. In only eight of Bush's 96 months did the economy create as many jobs as the 290,000 it did last month. Clinton exceeded that level 33 times. Reagan exceeded it 24. In all, the economy gained about 1.2 million jobs annually during the six years of recovery under Bush. It averaged about twice that during the expansion from March 1991 to February 2001.


Clinton handed over a stealer economy to Bush. No other President ever had it so good.

[tranche]

4. Well, if you discount all the jobs lost during Bush's term. He did pretty good.

[joeglow3]

5. Clinton did not hand over a "good" economy

He did hand over a nice budget surplus that was pissed away. However, the economy was going in the shitter. Now, don't get me wrong, this was NOT Clinton's fault. It was a greedy society that got crazy over tech. companies. What we saw in 2000-2001 was the bubble burst (similar to tulip mania) and had nothing to do with either president.

However, what Bush did next was troubling. Sadly, we lived WAAAY beyond our means in the 1990's and a correction was needed. However, instead of forcing us to deal with our deserved correction, they dicked with interest rates. This allowed the economy to "recover." However, as we have all seen is that it fixed NOTHING and just delayed the downturn, which hit back 10 times harder a few years ago. In short, a lot of what we saw in 1995-2001 had little to do with presidents and had everything thing to do with a greedy society that got "tech mania."

[Clio the Leo]

7. Makes you kind of say that Obama didn't come right after Clinton...

.... oh what he could have done with that surplus.

But it's a catch 22 probably. Sometimes I think things had to be so bad in order for him to be elected. Either that or he was put into office by some force just when we needed him.

[Drunken Irishman]

12. Clinton handed over a good economy to Bush...

It wasn't growing at the rate it had in the mid-90s. With that said, the aspects of that economy weren't dire. It's typical that after expansion, that you see a recession. If anything, it can be healthy. We did, in fact, see a recession start soon after Clinton left office.

It was Bush's response to the economic recession that led to the devastating, no-growth 00s.

[HereSince1628]

3. The important metric is NET JOBS GAINED

It does seem to be growing, even if terribly slowly for those who have been displace from employment.

But I really don't care about numbers that can be thrown around with no context.

[Go2Peace]

8. I am not settling for a sub par job market, even from Democrats

Many here are too young to remember, but we used to have pretty vibrant and competetive opportunities in most regions. Imagine what it would be like where employers were so comfortable about finding alternative work that many bosses were nervous to lose employees.

There is no reason that a great country like ours cannot meet that objective again. Unless we have such low expectations that we don't fight for the policies that bring it into place.

[mkultra]

9. like you have a choice but to take what your given.

maybe you could "not settle" for not winning the lottery and see how that goes.

[HughMoran]

10. Except the context was given

A little reading never hurt...

[Bluenorthwest]

6. So you think Bush inherited a 'clinton recession'?

Really? Figures.

[Dr Morbius]

11. This shows half the picture.

If one looks at jobs created and jobs lost, overall, I wonder how many jobs were actually "created" over Mr. Bush's entire Presidency. If one looks at the same metric, the Obama Presidency (after such a lousy 2009) has "lost" several million jobs. Now, it's clear to anyone that these jobs were lost after Obama took office as a result of the mess we were in since September 2008. So when does one draw the line? Are Bush's early job gains the result of effective government by Clinton in his final budget, or does Mr. Bush get credit for anything which happened after he took office?

My point is that it gets kind of hard to measure economic statistics accurately in political terms. Economy and politics, while intermarried, are distinct and different animals, and each affects one another in both immediate and long-term ways. It's hard to draw comparisons. It will be easier, and much fairer, to compare Obama to Bush in terms of job numbers several years from now, when there's more data.

If the point of the OP was that Obama is doing a much, much better job than Bush with the economy, I should think that was already obvious.

[LWolf]

13. Not anywhere in my region. nt