{UAH} AKIM ODONG HERE IS YOUR THIRD PIECE

No, President Obama is Not the Greatest Jobs Creator in Human History – Not Even Better Than Reagan.

---

BY MICHAEL HAUSAM

 

The Forbes article “Obama Outperforms Reagan On Jobs, Growth and Investing” is roaring through the Internet. Just like another mendacious article published on the website about Obama being the smallest government guy ever (rebuttal), it has caught on for two reasons: It goes against everything we know and it is an oustanding example of “viral” confirmation bias.

The article is causing some debate online, such as with a response piece at Being Classically Liberal called “Forbes is Wrong, Reagan's economy is better than Obama's.” The Forbes piece's argument hinges on the following chart, which supposedly shows Obama surpassing Reagan in terms of lowering the unemployment rate:

That's outstanding. By that reasoning, if everyone gave up looking for work and dropped out of the labor market, then Obama would have a perfect unemployment rate of 0%! Here's the rest of the story:

More people were put to work as a percentage of the population as a result of Reagan's expanding economy, and under Obama, at least 1 million fewer Americans are working now than six years ago.

The next argument by the Forbes contributor Adam Hartung, who has gone to this well once before with the almost satirically titled article “Economically, Could Obama Be America's Best President?,” is that the American stock market is up more than under Reagan. No argument there - and as President Obama himself admitted - 95% of income gains under his presidency have gone to the top 1%. But he was a little hard on himself, a new report shows that the top 10% have seen income gains.

But one highly doubts Obama was elected to make the stock market boom for the top 10%, while the rest of the economy remains stagnant at best. And if inequality is your thing, both Clinton and Obama economies saw a 2% rise in inequality, while the Bush economy remained flat.

Not only is there more economic inequality under Obama, but economic growth under President Obama - and former President George W. Bush - has been anemic. This undermines another central contention of the article, because let's take a look at real average economic growth:

But let's get back to the jobs claims for a few last points. If the reason that the “labor force participation rate” (notice the optimum term, “labor force”) is at a 34-year-low is because of all the retiring Baby Boomers, then we would expect to see youth unemployment dropping like a rock as people step into all those jobs. Alas, that is not the case,  as this customized chart from Trading Economics points out (under the Reagan economy, it drops to 10%, while under Obama's, it is at 13.6%):

Most starkly, when the actual numbers are evaluated, and not just the unemployment percentages, Reagan's economy created over 5 times as many jobs - with a much smaller national population - than has Obama's. Lastly, when adjusted for population growth, here's what the actual job numbers look like:

Conclusion: Claims of superior job creation and employment under Obama require focusing solely on the unemployment rate and ignoring job-seeking activity as well as the actual numbers of jobs created. Reagan's performance is undeniably superior when all relevant factors are taken into account.

 

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"