We Didn’t Lose 700,000 Jobs a Month

Obama said recently that when he came into office “we lost 700,000 jobs a month.” This is false!

January indeed lost that number, but the average job losses from October 2008 (the first full month of the panic economy) through January of this year when Obama came in, was 599,000, not “700,000 a month.”

Secondly, as I pointed out in my column “the Stimulus’ logging indicator” myth,” the economy in February, meaning before a dime of Stimulus was spent, lost 60,000 less jobs than it did in January. This means that part of the monthly decrease in speed of job losses in the following months happened without the stimulus, too. Therefore it is too early for Obama to tap himself on the back with the seven-month old Stimulus job market, which lost a monthly average of 386,426 jobs (starting in March).

Thirdly, in the last seven months of the “Bush Recession” we lost a monthly average of only 146,714 jobs. Explanation?  The Bush recession lasted until the end of August 2008. From then on, Lehman collapsed, the shtick of Medoff came to light, and candidate/new President Obama scared everyone about the economic peril. These three things were outside much (or any) of Bush’s control, yet pushed the economy to the brink and with it killing the job market. So as long Obama’s Economy does not show average job losses of 146,000, we are not even in the vicinity of the Bush Recession, despite the Stimulus.