BUSH’S JOBLESS RECOVERY AND LUDICROUS EMPLOYMENT FORECAST

A

Which of course it is not. The red line in the chart above shows Bush’s pathetic job creation record, and shows once and for all that his criminal tax cuts for the ultra-rich were simply a give-away for friends, and did not help the economy for the other 99% of Americans one bit. I am endlessly amazed that anyone with an annual income less than seven figures could even contemplate voting to re-elect this fraud.

Again, as CBS reports, there are two ways to interpret Bush’s ‘forecast’. The more conservative one is that the economy will generate 2.6 million net new jobs in 2004, about 220 thousand per month, moving total employment up almost to where it was before he seized office (the lower blue line above). This compares to growth of 112 thousand in January, so despite the ebullience that surrounded that number announcement, even that number is only half the monthly rate needed to achieve this target. But when asked for clarification, the Council Chairman said that the forecast is for average 2004 employment to be 2.6 million higher than average 2003 employment of 130 million. To achieve that feat, employment will have to jump by 460 thousand per month and reach about 135 million by December (the higher blue line on the chart above).

In the interest of public service, I’m going to hold Bush and the Council to their word. Each month I’ll repost the above chart showing progress towards the 2.6 million net new job target. And to be more than fair, I’ll settle for achievement of the lower forecast on the chart above. After all, I appreciate that Mr. Bush has a lot of trouble with numbers.

This is not an unreasonable expectation of a president who used this ludicrous announcement for blatant political purposes. This is the number one issue in the campaign and he needs to be measured on his performance. After all, if he had run an administration that merely kept job growth up with new entrants in the labour force (growing at 150 thousand a month), employment would currently be above 139 million, and the jobless recovery would not be an issue.

The number that Bush uses to talk about jobs, of course, is the fraudulent unemployment rate, which excludes the millions who have simply given up looking for work in the horrendous Bush economy, and also fails to include the millions who are struggling with part-time jobs because Bush is encouraging his big business buddies to outsource and offshore all the full-time jobs. I’ve already written about the fact that the actual unemployment rate is over 8%.

Data is taken from the US Department of Labor statistics.