The Facts Show Increase of Jobs Under Bush

Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004

The media and Democrats keep repeating it over and over: "2.3 million jobs
lost" since President Bush took office. His could be the worst job record
since before World War II, they claim.
One little problem: It's not true.

Not only has there been no net loss of jobs during the Bush administration,
there has been a net gain, even with the devastation of 9/11. At least 2.4
million jobs have been created since the president took office, 2 million of
those in 2003. The gains more than offset the losses.

While Democrats continue to beat their election-year drums about
outsourcing, manufacturing losses, unemployment and slow growth in
employment, America's economy has been steadily creating jobs.

At least 366,000 jobs have been created in the last five months, over
100,000 of those in January, White House press secretary Scott McClellan has
noted. And though the eight-month recession "officially" ended in November,
economic indicators are surprising economists and pointing toward a take-off
in the recovery.

The signs:


a.. The 5.6 percent unemployment rate is the lowest in two years and below
the average of the 1980s (7.3 percent) and '90s (5.8 percent), and still
continues to drop.

a.. The nation's economic output revealed the strongest quarterly growth in
20 years. The data for the fourth quarter of 2003 show that the civilian
labor force rose by 333,000, while the number of unemployed in the labor
force dropped by 575,000. Even better, the number of so-called discouraged
workers declined in December.

a.. Consumer spending grew between 4 percent and 5 percent last year, and
real hourly earnings rose 1.5 percent. Real earnings have risen over the
last three years.

a.. Exports doubled to 19 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to less
than 9 percent in the third.

a.. The number of American workers is at an all-time high of 138.5 million,
a level never before attained in U.S. history.

a.. Jobless claims are 10 percent below the average of the last 25 years and
still falling.

a.. Hiring indices are up, even in manufacturing.

a.. Productivity growth is extremely high.

Now the doomsayers are criticizing the validity of the unemployment rate,
which at 5.6 percent does not fit their gloomy story.


Faulty Counting


The problem is the areas of biggest job growth are usually not even being
counted at all.


Though 75 percent of jobs are created by small companies, according to the
Small Business Administration, this sector's entrepreneurial activity and
the jobs it creates are left out by Washington bean counters when
calculating official new job numbers.


The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does its Payroll Survey by phoning
businesses to crunch the number of jobs that have been gained or lost. This
is where Democrats grabbed onto their lifeline, the 2.3 million figure. Look
only at the Payroll Survey, and there has been a gain of only 522,000 jobs
since Bush took office.

But here's the rub. The Household Survey is used to determine the
unemployment rate and accounts for those who are self-employed, and small
emerging businesses that might be overlooked by the Payroll Survey. But the
number of U.S. firms isn't static, and the "fixed list" used by the BLS for
phoning established businesses does not reflect new entrepreneurial
activity.

People are called at home and asked if they have jobs, or if they are in the
market for a job. In contrast to the Payroll Survey, the Household Survey
shows that 2.4 million jobs have been created so far during Bush's time in
office.

As Economy.com writer Haseeb Ahmed recently wrote, "something is amiss in
the [Payroll] survey."

Credit Where Credit Is Due

That's not all. When doomsayers, and media spoiling for a fight in an
election year, laughed at Bush's prediction of 2.6 million new jobs this
year, not everyone was scoffing.

Ahmed, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and others hardly batted an
eye. Greenspan said it was "probably feasible" the economy would reach the
Bush administration's forecast of adding 2.6 million jobs this year,
provided growth continues and the productivity rate slows to more typically
levels.

"I don't think it's 'Fantasyland,'" Greenspan said.

"I agree with him," said John Ryding, chief market economist at Bear
Stearns. "I think that we will create 2.5 million, possibly more, jobs over
the balance of the year."

Ahmed is convinced that "the revision patterns of the early-1990s recovery
cycle" will be repeated. A total of 1.4 million job gains were revised
upward to 2.9 million in the first 21 months after the end of the last
recession, just after Bush Sr. was voted out of office.