Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
As I explained in Repost: The Bush Years Were a Lost Decade, the oughts produced zero net job growth under the economic policies of George W. Bush. Nada. Zip.
I admit this sets the bar pretty low for president Barack Obama to show improvement over his predecessor. Nevertheless, Obama's efforts are producing a modest economic recovery after a decade of zero job growth. The economy is taking a step back from staring into the abyss of the Second Great Depression when Obama took the oath of office. Given the deep hole that Republicans had dug for him – and their obstructing his every recovery effort every step of the way – the man deserves some credit, not shrill criticsm.
That said, the monthly jobs report, published the first Friday of every month, actually exceeded expectations. The Washington Monthly:
By some measures, the U.S. economy was expected to lose 120,000 jobs in August, mostly as a result of government cutbacks and Census layoffs, with the private sector shedding about 10,000 jobs. The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics wasn't good, but it was significantly better than everyone thought it would be.
With the American economic recovery showing clear signs of slowdown, private employers added 67,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said on Friday. The number was more than forecast.
Over all, the nation lost 54,000 jobs in August, the agency said, as state and local governments, many of them grappling with severe budget deficits, cut 10,000 jobs last month. Another 114,000 temporary Census positions also came to an end. In all, governments cut 121,000 jobs last month.
The unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent in July.
Of particular interest is the breakdown between the public and private sectors. It's the loss of public-sector jobs, mostly from the wind-down of the Census, that brings the overall total into the negative. But while the private sector was predicted in some corners to have lost jobs in August, it actually added 67,000, which is far short of where it needs to be, but is still a respectable number under the circumstances.
Indeed, we've now seen eight consecutive months of job growth in the private sector, a streak we haven't seen in a long while.
As a quick aside, you would think that Republicans would praise Obama for the reduction in federal, state and local public employment. Doesn't this satisfy their bloodlust for reducing the size of government? I'm just saying.
To be clear, it's not my intention to sugarcoat the jobs report. The economy needs to be adding jobs — lots of them — right now, and as the chart below shows, the employment landscape's head is not yet above water. Just to keep up with population growth, the economy needs to add about 150,000 jobs a month. To bring down the unemployment rate, the figure would have to be about double. We're not even in the ballpark.
But for those looking for good news — or at least less-bad news — today's jobs report offers at least a glimmer of hope. Things aren't good, but nearly everyone expected them to be worse.
Once again, here's the homemade chart I run on the first Friday of every month, showing monthly job losses since the start of the Great Recession. The image makes a distinction — red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration.
Steve Benen clarifies this chart in his next post at The Washington Monthly:
[M]any of you have emailed to suggest it's time for a slightly different chart — one showing just the private sector job market.
It's a fair request. Because of the Census Bureau jobs, the total jobs chart is skewed a bit — some months, such as May 2010, look better than they should, because the monthly total is exaggerated by hundreds of thousands of Census jobs. Other months, such as June 2010, are distorted in the other direction, looking worse than they should.
Since so many have begun skipping right past the topline number to look specifically at the private sector, it stands to reason that this chart would be of greater value.
All told, the economy has added 763,000 private-sector jobs in 2010. For comparison purposes, note that the economy lost nearly 4.7 million private-sector jobs in 2009, and lost 3.8 million in 2008.
With that in mind, here it is, a different homemade chart, showing monthly job losses/gains in the private sector since the start of the Great Recession. The image makes a distinction — red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration.
By the way the 763,000 private sector jobs created in 2010 is more than during the Bush year's lost decade. It's not much, but it's a start, and better than what we had.
NB: Rachel Maddow dubbed Steve Benen's charts the "bikini graph." In case any of you are still wondering why, this should answer your question.
H/T zaiusnation.blogspot.com