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Economy Title: Obama's "Recovery" vs. Reagan's Recovery: The Stark Differences Let’s compare the Obama “recovery” to the Reagan recovery. Obama's "recovery" has come with poor GDP growth, a net loss of jobs, and an increase in the unemployment rate. Reagan's recovery came with robust GDP growth, a net gain of over 600,000 jobs, and a huge drop in the unemployment rate. Here are the numbers: The recession that Reagan had to overcome peaked in December 1982 with an unemployment rate of 10.8%. That recession included double-digit interest rates and double-digit inflation. Yet, by the 24th month of Reagan’s recovery, unemployment had dropped from 10.8% to 7.3%, and we had a net gain of 684,000 jobs (for a month-by-month look at the unemployment rate going back to the 1940s, see http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp). 24 months into Obama’s “recovery,” unemployment stands at 9.2% and we’ve had a net loss of at least 1.5 million jobs (the number of unemployed people has gone from 12.5 million in January 2009 to 14.1 million--see the most recent BLS unemployment report at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). Louis Woodhill, writing last month in Forbes magazine, noted the contrast between the Obama “recovery” and the Reagan recovery: In terms of jobs the Reagan recovery of 1982-84 stands in sharp contrast to the Obama recovery of 2009-11. The recession that started in July 1981 lasted almost as long as the December 2007 downturn (16 months versus 18 months) and produced higher peak unemployment (10.8% versus 10.1%). However, during the first two years of the . . . unemployment rate fell from 10.8% to 7.2%, even though labor force participation increased from 64.2% to 64.5%. While in terms of employment the Obama recovery has been catastrophic, in terms of economic growth it has been merely disastrous. Real GDP growth during the first two years of the Obama recovery should average 2.69%, about half of what is typical for the start of an economic recovery. In contrast, real GDP grew at a 6.65% annual rate during the first two years of the Reagan recovery. (http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/07...-recovery.html) Writing two months ago, John Lott noted the following: During the 23 months since the Obama recovery started, an average of 23,000 jobs a month have been created. The same 23 month period into the Reagan recovery saw that an average of 285,800 jobs were added each month. (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/...bama-recovery/) The economic numbers for the Obama “recovery” are even worse when they’re examined more closely. John Lott again: Depending on the measurement chosen -- the survey of businesses (the Establishment survey) or workers (the Household survey) -- between 6.3 and 7.5 million jobs were lost during the recession. Yet, the Establishment survey only shows some 535,000 total jobs created during the recovery, a meager fraction of what would be needed to get back to the recession employment levels. The Household survey paints an even bleaker picture: in addition to jobs lost during the recession, another 304,000 jobs were lost during the recovery. A graph of the changes in jobs shown here illustrates the incredibly flatjob growth under Obama. Why has the unemployment rate fallen if there are so few new jobs? It is simple: because 5 million people have given up looking for work and thus completely left the labor force during the recovery. Just since August, 2 million have left the work force. Alas, the problem is even worse than these numbers indicate. The jobs created from June 2009 through April 2011 have almost all been temporary service jobs. Of the 535,000 new jobs, 500,000 were temporary jobs. Thus, just a measly 35,000 were permanent jobs. To put it differently, up until this last month, there had been no net increase in permanent jobs during the recovery. (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/...bama-recovery/)
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#1. To: smokestack (#0)
We should RAISE taxes to Reagan ere levels then.
With the economy still in the dumper -- maybe permanently? -- and full-time jobs becoming as scarce as rain during a drought, huge percentages of Americans have had their (misplaced) faith in the American dream shaken, the upper-middle-class consumerist lifestyle is exposed as a mirage for anybody who plays by the rules. Capitalism and the America that embraced it as a way of life is now and forever more a failure. It does me good to know that the generation that voted in Reagan and his ideology will see their America die from that ideology before their very own eyes and knowing they had a hand in its destruction.
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