Bush's "Jobs and Growth Plan"

In May of 2003 the Bush Administration passed a tax cut program which they claimed would create "5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004 or an average of 306,000 new jobs each month starting July 2003." The Bushies have failed miserably in meeting the overall objective but the trend had been in the right direction from July 2003 through March 2004. Since March, however, the trend has reversed. In fact only 32,000 jobs were created in July (this number will be revised downward next month) and that is 274,000 jobs short of the projection. In fact "job creation failed to meet the administration's projections in 11 of the past 13 months."

A Closer Look at the June Job Data

Speaking of jobs, if you create 77,000 new jobs in a month but realize that you overstated job creation the previous couple of months by 35,000 jobs, what do you report ? 112,000 new jobs, of course. Afterall, who's gonna notice. Richard Torgerson has the goods here.

Jobs. Are We Having Fun Yet?

In Slate Daniel Gross analyzes why Americans don't feel better about the job market when Bush brags about creating 1.4 million jobs. According to the U.S. Department of Labor the country had an employment–to-population ratio (that's the percentage of Americans over the age of 16 who have a job) of 64.4% in January of 2001 when Bush took office. But in May of 2004, that ratio stood at only 62.2%. What should we make of this? If the ratio were still at 64.4%, with our current population of 293 million, there would be nearly 4.8 million more Americans employed. Click here, check the third box (Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate) then hit "retrieve data." For good graphical job formation data, try Job Watch.