From the Bureau of Labor Statstics:
Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 121,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Employment continued to trend upward in several service-providing industries and in mining. Average hourly earnings rose by 8 cents in June.
Bush's overall record - well -
sucks.
No president in the past 60 years, save George Herbert Walker Bush, has failed so miserably in his economic performance. But to see how bad President Bush's economic policies have been, we must work through the numbers. It's worth the effort.
Consider the percentage change in jobs from the bottom of each of the postwar recessions to 28 months into the recovery. Before the early 1990s, job increases averaged over 7 percent; the elder Bush gained only 2 percent; and the current recovery, as of March 2004 (the report's cutoff date), had produced no job growth.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, this recovery started in November 2001. Yet, there was no job growth until 2 and a half years after the recovery officially started. That is terrible.
Later information shows an increase of 1.5 million jobs in the past 10 months. It is still a tepid performance after an unprecedented postwar record of no job gains for the first two years into the recovery.
The Bush record also pales compared with Bill Clinton's average of 236,000 additional jobs per month, or 2.3 million in 10 months. Clinton's average gain per month is 50 percent greater than the average of Bush's gains in the past 10 months.
The economy has to create 150,000 jobs/month to deal with natural unemployment - people leaving jobs for better ones, businesses filing bankruptcy etc.... For the last 10 months, Bush's "jobs machine" has produced just enough jobs to absorb natural attrition. That's it. No more. Wow - color me impressed.
Finally, Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, has pointed out that over four-fifths of total job growth in the past year has been in low-end occupations. "The Great American Job Machine is not even close to generating the surge of high-powered jobs that is typically the driving force behind greater incomes and consumer demand," he wrote in a New York Times column last month.
Global Insight confirmed this observation with this report that stated the top ten areas of job creation in 2003-2005 paid $9000/year less than the top ten areas of job loss in 2002-2003.
Then of course there is the compound annual growth rate of jobs for this recovery, which currently stands at .71% -- the lowest of any recovery in the last 40 years.
Bush has done absolutely nothing for this economy - except increase the deficit and give us tepid job growth in low paying industries. There is little chance upcoming releases can improve this performance at this point - especially with the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. Bush will go down in history as having the worst jobs creation record of any president.
Next Friday get ready for the Dem Econ Agenda Round II -- taxes.
Bonddad provides economic analysis for Democratic candidates and causes with NRRSA