Last week we went through the monthly ritual of analyzing the jobs number and drawing sweeping economic and political conclusions from this single (provisional) data point.
It seems like we could have more fun drawing sweeping economic and political conclusions from the extended data series.
Monthly growth of 200,000 jobs is widely considered to be indicative of a healthy recovery in the labor market (green line).
So far, the president’s record doesn’t look too healthy.
- The US has added 200K jobs in just 14 of the president’s 50 months in office
- The longest stretch of ‘healthy’ job growth was 4 consecutive months (Dec-11 through Mar-12)
- There have been 17 months of negative job growth
- The 45 months since the official end of the recession (Jun-09) have included 12 months of negative job growth (i.e. one in four)
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