Nearly 2 Million Fewer Americans Have Jobs During Obama Presidency: Trends Decidedly Negative

Nearly 2 million fewer Americans have jobs since President Barack Obama took office on January 20, 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a unit of the United States Department of Labor.

On February 17, 2009, less than one month into President Obama's term, he signed the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" (hereinafter "Stimulus"), a massive $787 billion government spending plan aimed at stimulating the economy and creating jobs.

In anticipation of enacting the Stimulus, President Obama's top economic advisor designate, future Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer, issued a report titled "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." The report ( Figure 1 ) maintained that enactment of the Stimulus would result in (1) a maximum unemployment rate of 8 percent during the period 2009-2014; (2) a current unemployment rate of 6.7%; and (3) an unemployment rate of 5.5% at the time of the 2012 presidential election. The first two predictions were wildly wrong; the third is far from panning out.

During the course of the Obama presidency, the unemployment rate has increased from 7.8% to as high as 10.1%; it currently sits at 9.1% . Similarly, the average monthly unemployment rate has increased to 9.43%, nearly double the 5.27% monthly unemployment rate during the presidency of George W. Bush. Most disappointing, however, is that the statistical trend of the monthly unemployment rate is flat, showing no promise of future improvement. The Pearson's r correlation coefficient is -.01.

The BLS employment statistics paint an ever bleaker picture. In February 2009, shortly after President Obama's inauguration, the BLS estimated the number of employed at 141,687,000. Some 28 months and $787 billion later, the number of employed has fallen to 139,779,000 - 1.9 million fewer Americans with jobs. Even worse, the statistical trend of net employment during the Obama presidency is decidedly negative: the Pearson's r correlation coefficient is -.32.

The BLS estimates that the Civilian Labor Force, the total number of people currently employed or actively searching for jobs, is 153,693,000 . As pointed out above, however, those actually employed equals 139,779,000. Therefore, 13,914,000 Americans are currently out of work.

Source(s):

Christina Romer, Jared Bernstein. "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan."
"Civilian Employment," Bureau of Labor Statistics
"Civilian Labor Force," Bureau of Labor Statistics
"Civilian Unemployment," Bureau of Labor Statistics
"Unemployment Rate," Bureau of Labor Statistics