Trump is already the most successful U.S. president since Ronald Reagan

[Cerebrum123]

:barf:
:spew:
:hurl:
:regurgitate:

(and if there is not one of those - there SHOULD be)....

[carpedm9587]

And adding more layers of bureaucracy has never helped an economy. It's like adding layers of fat on a long distance runner.

Actually - the stats say government jobs shrank by 341,000 under Obama. Private sector jobs grew.

IMO, a president can claim credit for the former. Though every president since I was born has claimed credit for the latter, it is very hard to forge a causal link between presidential action and job creation. There is an excellent Freakonomics podcast on this very topic.

[Mountain Man]

What sort of jobs did the Obama administration see in this job growth? Were they not largely government jobs?

Yep. And they counted part-time work as a job created, even if it was only a few hours a week.

[demi-conservative]

Yep. And they counted part-time work as a job created, even if it was only a few hours a week.

They actually did that?

Obamacare destroyed lots of full-time jobs, forced people to take more than one part-time, and this is job creation??

[Darth Executor]

Actually - the stats say government jobs shrank by 341,000 under Obama.

From your stats:

"That said, the government jobs that were lost were all at the state and local level."

Probably because Republicans were making gains at those levels. Nothing to do with Obama. No mention of what happened to jobs at federal level.

[Mountain Man]

They actually did that?

Obamacare destroyed lots of full-time jobs, forced people to take more than one part-time, and this is job creation??

It's the infamous U3 unemployment figure. You could work as little as two-hours a week, and U3 would count you as "employed".

----------

The U-3 unemployment rate is a comparatively narrow technical measure that leaves out a whole swath of out-of-work people who are willing and able to take a job but who don't fit the narrow BLS definition of "unemployed." For example, a stonemason who wants to work but who has become discouraged by a lack of opportunity in the midst of a deep economic recession would not be included in U-3 unemployment. A marketing executive who is laid off at age 57 and stops scheduling new job interviews due to her experience of age discrimination would not be included in U-3 unemployment. A person who only works one six-hour shift per week because no full-time jobs are available in his area would not be included in U-3 unemployment.

In contrast to the U-3 rate, the U-6 unemployment rate includes all of these cases. Consequently, the U-6 rate is much truer to a natural, non-technical understanding of what it means to be unemployed. By capturing discouraged workers, underemployed workers and other folks who exist on the margins of the labor market, the U-6 rate provides a broad picture of the underutilization of labor in the country. In this sense, the U-6 rate is the true unemployment rate.

https://www.investopedia.com/article...e-u6-vs-u3.asp

[carpedm9587]

Yep. And they counted part-time work as a job created, even if it was only a few hours a week.

So can I see the source of your stats so I can review them? Also, do we know that this is not how job creation has always been counted, by all parties?

[Mountain Man]

Comprehensive explanation of the different measurements:

http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate.jsp

U6 is how unemployment used to be measured until Clinton.

[carpedm9587]

From your stats:

"That said, the government jobs that were lost were all at the state and local level."

Probably because Republicans were making gains at those levels. Nothing to do with Obama. No mention of what happened to jobs at federal level.

Yes - they were. The stats I cited do not break out federal jobs, AFAICT. Your "probably," however, is an assumption. The stats do not tells us what states and localities shed jobs. It would not surprise me, however, to find that more jobs were shed in Republican-controlled states than Democratic ones. There is no question in my mind that Republicans tend to foster government, and Democrats shrinkage, tend to foster government growth. I'll try to find some actual numbers.

The data here (https://www.npr.org/2017/01/07/50860...en-in-8-charts) is sourced, and shows some more of the progress that was achieved during Obama's tenure. Note I said "during," not "due to." There are serious questions in my mind whether a president can be shown to have any significant impact on these numbers (http://freakonomics.com/podcast/frea...really-matter/). But assuming they are responsible for setting fiscal policy that can create the environment in which economics plays out, Obama did well, Trump is doing OK but not quite as well. Clinton seems to dominate, but he inherited the dot.com bubble and vacated the office just when it bust, passing the problems to Bush, which depressed his numbers. Bush then passed on the Great Recession to Obama, which depressed his numbers. The entire first year of his presidency, job growth was in negative territory month after month. By the end of his first term, jobs had just broken even with no net growth over four years.

The one in this list that seems to have inherited a "functional" economy and did very well with it was Reagan. We will never know what could have happened under Obama without the Great Depression, or what the real numbers under Clinton's or Bush's would have been without the dot.com bubble.

[carpedm9587]

Comprehensive explanation of the different measurements:

http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate.jsp

U6 is how unemployment used to be measured until Clinton.

Umm... this is data related to the rate of employment, not the number/type of jobs created, which was our discussion. Also, if you look at the data, U3 is the "official" unemployment figure and tracks with what is being reported. U6 includes part-time and shows a higher unemployment rate as a result.

All six rates show significant decline since the peak of the Great Recession.

So I'm not sure I am understanding your point...

And where are the stats that support the statement, "And they counted part-time work as a job created, even if it was only a few hours a week?"

[One Bad Pig]

There is no question in my mind that Republicans tend to foster government, and Democrats shrinkage, tend to foster government growth. I'll try to find some actual numbers.

I am having some difficulty parsing this.

[Darth Executor]

Yes - they were. The stats I cited do not break out federal jobs, AFAICT.

Then why does CNN claim the jobs lost "were all at the state and local level"?

[carpedm9587]

I am having some difficulty parsing this.

Sheesh - VERY bad editing on my part. I'll see if it's too late to fix...

...and it is.


What I was (badly) attempting to say is, my perception is that Republicans are more likely to shrink a government, and Democrats to expand it. IMO, both do it with vigor, but not a great deal of thought.

Trump, for example, attempted to shrink regulation (which should also shrink government) by simply requiring two old regulations be tossed for every new one created. That kind of mindless numbers game provides no leadership that drives to GOOD regulation - it is merely a numbers game. A GOOD leader would say, "I want each regulatory agency to establish a group that will review every regulation with en eye to paring down the unnecessary ones. I want a breakdown of each regulation that should be kept, and the rationalization for it, on my desk by "X." Ideally, they would provide guiding principles for assessing the "goodness" of regulations. Then put in place an oversight mechanism to control regulatory bloat going forward. In the short-term, that will expand government to do the housekeeping. In the long term it will result "right-sizing" government to what is needed.

[carpedm9587]

Then why does CNN claim the jobs lost "were all at the state and local level"?

Umm...I see no contradiction here. The article says X jobs lost, all at the local and state level. From this I can logically assume no jobs were shed at the federal level. What I cannot assume is whether jobs were added (at the federal level) and (if so) how many. I am not finding those numbers anywhere (yet).

[Mountain Man]

Also, if you look at the data, U3 is the "official" unemployment figure and tracks with what is being reported. U6 includes part-time and shows a higher unemployment rate as a result.

Yes... that was my point. U3 considers someone who works a few hours a week to be "employed".