How Many Jobs Were Lost or Created Under Obama? (June 2015 update)
Number of Jobs Lost Under Obama/Number of Jobs Gained Under Obama (Latest June 2015 update)
The numbers below are as of May 2012. For current reports, please click one of the links above.
All Jobs Obama Created Were Gov't Jobs?Number of Jobs Lost Under Obama/Number of Jobs Gained Under Obama (Latest June 2015 update)
The numbers below are as of May 2012. For current reports, please click one of the links above.
Don't Put Money on This...Read below..
- 4,317,000 TOTAL jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST in from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession in early 2010. That's a decrease of 3.2%.
- 3,765,000 jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were CREATED from the "trough" of the recession until now, May 2012. That's an increase of 2.91%.
- In total, 552,000 jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until now, May 2012. That's a decrease of 0.41%. *
- We have experienced 20 months WITHOUT job losses since September 2010. We have ADDED 3,124,000 jobs during those 19 months.
- We now have 133,009,000 TOTAL non-farm jobs.
* These are all net figures, meaning that they represent the total number of jobs at the end of a reporting period. All losses have been subtracted from all gains and vice verse.
* Though, as of April 2012, we still have fewer jobs (in adjusted numbers) than when President Obama took office, jobs are being added at a faster clip under Obama than under George Bush at the same time in his presidency. At this point in Bush's presidency (April 2004), there were still 1,415,000 fewer jobs than when he was inaugurated in January 2001 (compared to 572,000 fewer for Obama). The number of jobs didn't eclipse the number when Bush was first inaugurated until February 2005, in Bush's second term. (These numbers will be updated for May in the coming days.)
How many PRIVATE sector jobs have been lost or gained since Obama was inaugurated?
- 4,213,000 PRIVATE-sector jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession in early 2010. That's a decrease of 3.8%.
- 4,268,000 PRIVATE-sector jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were GAINED OR CREATED from the "trough" of the recession until now, May 2012. That's an increase of 4.00%.
- In total, 55,000 private sector jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) have been GAINED from the time Obama took office until now, May 2012. That's a net increase of 0.05%. *
- We have experienced 27 months of positive private-sector job GROWTH from February 2010 until May 2012. We have added 4,268,000 private-sector jobs during those 26 months.
- We now have 111,040,000 PRIVATE sector non-farm jobs.
*Though, as of April 2012, we still have fewer private-sector jobs (in adjusted numbers) than when President Obama took office, jobs are being added at a faster clip under Obama than under George Bush at the same time in his presidency. At this point in Bush's presidency (April 2004), there were still 2,194,000 fewer private sector jobs than when he was inaugurated in January 2001 (compared to 35,000 MORE for Obama). The number of private-sector jobs didn't eclipse the number when Bush was first inaugurated until June 2005, in Bush's second term. (This number will be updated for May in the next few days.)
How many GOVERNMENT jobs have been lost or gained since Obama was inaugurated?
- 102,000 GOVERNMENT jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession in early 2010. That's a decrease of .47% (about half of a percent).
- Another 505,000 GOVERNMENT jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the "trough" of the recession until now, May 2012. That's a decrease of 2.25%.
- In total, 607,000 government jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until now, May 2012. That's a decrease of 2.69%.
- We have experienced decreases in the number of government jobs in 21 out of the last 24 months, starting in June 2010, when the layoff of 2010 Census workers began.
- We now have 21,969,000 GOVERNMENT non-farm jobs, not including people in the military. (Civilians employed by the U.S. and working for the military are counted.)
(Note: Current numbers taken from the April Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Report. Historical numbers taken from various archived Employment Situation reports as indexed HERE. Specifics will be provided upon request; please email me or leave a comment.)
An afterthought---
A reader asks:
How Many Private Sector Jobs Were Lost Because of Obama?
We haven't lost ANY private sector jobs (net) since February 2010, a year after Obama took office. Between January 2009 and February 2010, we lost 4,213,000 private sector jobs as stated above.
Should we "blame" Obama for not being immediately able to stem the tide of private sector job loss in 2009? If a house if burning out of control and the fire department comes to put out the fire, it continues to burn until it is put under control and cooled down, right? Now.. would you blame the fire department for the continued fire and the time to put it out after it arrives on the scene?
Well, you might, but I wouldn't: Here's my reasoning: Burning Down the House!
So my answer to this question would be a big, fat ZERO. I do NOT feel that Obama is to blame for any loss of jobs between January 2009 and February 2010. If you think he is, please leave a comment and explain your reasoning!
Has Obama Redefined Unemployment?
No.
No administration can define or redefine unemployment, nor what counts as a job or a worker in the BLS reports.
Changes are made to the questionnaires that are used to determine "employment" from time to time, but these questionnaires have not been changed for years.
My article about the subject is HERE, with links to BLS information about this.
This report has been updated; updated links are listed at the top of this post.
Obama is certainly to blame. The economy started to tank BECAUSE he was elected in November. His anti-corporate agenda was well know, and business owners everywhere began to scale back in preparation of what was to come. Thankfully, Obama was talked out of rolling back the Bush tax cuts, so the gaping wound was partly bandaged. Companies stop the huge layoffs, and that's why we've seen the whopping .05% "growth" that we've seen. However, real growth won't take place until Obama is removed from office. I'd wager my house on the fact that if Romney wins the election in November, unemployment will go down, and interest rates will finally start to move back up. The US economy is based more on consumer and corporate confidence than anything that a president could do. And there is no confidence when there's a Democrat in office.
ReplyDeleteAnd there is no confidence when there's a Democrat in office.
DeleteYupper...we all have confidence IN the Religious Right Wing GOP Republicans...
Let's see...
1921-1933 GOP was in the White House...
Seven (7) years in they gave everyone...the GREAT Depression.!!
January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1989 Ronald Wilson Reagan
Six (6) years in...1987 Stock Market Crash.!!
January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009 George Walker Bush
Seven (7) years in...the SECOND GREAT DEPRESSION.!!
I'd say the Religious Right Wing GOP Republicans have a pretty good track record.
What happened to "Three Strikes Your OUT..!!
Works for me..!!
Are you a complete and total blithering idiot? I don't like to call names, but some people are just so, so clueless..... it almost makes me scream!
ReplyDeleteDid you just crawl out of the cabbage patch in January 2009? No other excuse for your absurd and completely wrong allegations.. definitely among the worst and most clueless comments I have had on my blog to date....
The housing bubble BURST in summer 2006... even before the Democrats took over Congress!
We reached the PEAK of jobs in January 2008!!! That was months and months before Obama was elected!
The recession officially started in December 2007!! Look it up! Even Wikipedia has that one right. NOBODY either Republican or Democrat was a front-runner back in December 2007!!
Things really fell to pieces when Lehman Brothers went bust and the banks were all on the verge of insolvency in September 2008. Obama was the nominee, but he did NOT have the solid lead in the Presidential race until AFTER the economy fell apart in mid September. Here.. check the 2008 presidential polls towards the bottom of this page:
2008 Presidential Election Polls and results
Obama was not "talked out of rolling back the Bush tax cuts"(which have seriously harmed our economy). The Republicans held the unemployed hostage and would not agree to extensions of sorely-needed unemployment insurance extensions until the deal about the Bush tax cuts was made.
As you can see from ANY chart of employment/unemployment/jobs numbers, the extensive layoffs slowed almost as soon as Obama took office.. and we started to GAIN jobs and workers in early 2010, well before the deal with the Bush tax cuts, which occurred in December 2010.
You know absolutely nothing about anything you have written so far.. aren't you embarrassed to be so completely wrong about EVERYTHING?
Not sure what .05% growth you are talking about.. Private sector growth since Obama took office? (Which is now at .1% growth since Obama took office.... You are looking at an outdated article.)
Did you complain as much about Bush when he was in the third year of his presidency? At the same point is point in his presidency, we were still DOWN 1.6% in the number of private jobs since he took office. Or are you now going to deny that you supported Bush?
ReplyDeleteYou can look at this article comparing job growth Bush vs. Obama .
So if the Republicans bring confidence to all of the people who will get screwed by a Republican economy, why wasn't job growth much better during the Bush years than it has been during the Obama years? The economy and the jobs numbers were propped up by the over-heated housing market (and the poorly regulated financial market) during the mid 2000's. It was a "bubble"... and the whole thing cam tumbling down. I know; I know; you are going to resort to stupid right-wing talking points that somehow Barney Frank was responsible for the housing bubble.
And if Republicans are so wonderful for the economy and so bad for consumer confidence, why are so many more jobs generally created when the Democratic presidents are in office?
Check out this link.. though I have seen others:
Recent job growth by President
Anonymous, everything you have written has been simply wrong. You need new sources of information (or you are intentionally lying). Someone is either lying to you, or you want to be lied to. Stop being gullible and stop thinking the Republicans have ANYTHING to offer you.
The waning years of the Bush administration should have shown you all you need to know, but instead of wising up, you somehow listened to the right-wingers and found a way to blame it all on the Democrats.
To Mr. Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteOne of the nice things about having a blog is that I can delete insulting or repetitive comments. So yours are gone. If you want to insult people, start your own blog. And my tone would not have been insulting to you if your tone was not insulting to me.
I will address the issues that you presented in a separate article, but most of those allegations are false, easily disproved with FACTS, which you seem to not understand, and the answers to these issues can already be found somewhere on this blog.
From what I see,you try to represent the facts as you see them and through your research you come up with some good facts. Nice job. But there are some lost jobs that will never be counted.
ReplyDeleteI worked in the government sector as a contractor working on a military base. Last Sept. more than 40 of us were brought into a work bay and were told our jobs were eliminated due to Obama's military cuts. As quoted by CNN on TV, this caused a loss of more than 220,000 jobs (I wish I can find the article). So like everyone else, as I wandered down to the unemployment office, I was told there was a 15 MONTH waiting placed on us to collect compensation. I later found out that Obama did this to keep the unemployment rate down. A hidden fact nobody knows about.
There is also the claim of job creation. As I placed more than 200 resume's and applications in for jobs. I found that many jobs are put out by companies that are not hiring. So I wonder if this job creation is based off of jobs placed in the paper or actually based off of people hired. I can even create jobs, I can say I need 100 people to mow my lawn. YEAH, job creation! But I will only hire 1.
Whats your opinion?
Mike
"I later found out that Obama did this to keep the unemployment rate down. A hidden fact nobody knows about."
DeleteHow did you "later find out" this lie? I'm sorry, Mike, but I've covered this over and over and over. The unemployment rate has NOTHING TO DO with whether or not people get benefits. The records of the state unemployment offices are NOT input into the unemployment rate calculations. People who are not eligible for unemployment insurance will still be counted as unemployed if they are actively looking for work. People who collect unemployment will not be counted as unemployed if they are not looking for work (and those people would be collecting unemployment fraudulently.)
Here: How the Unemployment Rate is Calcualted
Right now, only about 45% of the people who are officially unemployed are collecting any kind of unemployment benefits.
I don't know who told you the b.s. about the wait time because "they want to hold the unemployment rate down", but it is pure b.s. Somebody either is completely wrong or is lying. Or somebody is trying to get you to dislike Obama by lying.
About the 15 month wait: That is also b.s. If it is true, contact the federal Department of Labor because that state is violating federal law. The states need to report to the Feds how quickly they provide benefits to eligible claimants. If they don't meet Fed guidelines, the states can be penalized. So something is wrong there. Again.. either someone is lying or someone doesn't know their a$$ from a hole in the ground.. I used to work for the state Employment Security office, and I remembered this from my days in that office: The feds come down on the states pretty heavily if they keep people waiting.
There are several counts of jobs. The monthly report is based on a sample survey of employers. The employers need to report actual people ON PAYROLL as of the payroll period that contains the 12th day of the month. These are later verified against unemployment tax forms, so there is no incentive for employers to inflate jobs numbers. The monthly jobs report makes an attempt to estimate small businesses that are just starting up but they do not count self-employed people or farm workers. So unless you actually went out and hired 100 people and had them on a payroll (you were actually paying them), they would not be counted. If you hire one guy to mow your lawn occasionally, that job is not going to be counted.
That's not my opinion; those are facts, easily verifiable at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.
Mike, you seem really gullible based on the stuff you have posted here. I would suggest that you check and double check everything that anybody tells you... Someone may be using you to spread lies and propaganda.
I do thank you for the link explaining How the Unemployment Rate is Calcualted . This was info I didn't know.
ReplyDeleteI am not gullible and nobody is telling me lies, but I am objective. I am just another guy trying to find the facts about what is going on. I don't have the time to dig through all the statistics like you and your team does. I have checked out your stats and found that they are very close to being accurate. There is another site that supports your findings and explains it a little different though.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2829915/posts
I don't know when you stopped working for the Employment Security office but the rules have changed. As I stated the Unemployment office told me I have a 15 month waiting period. I then contacted my attorney to find out if this was true and what can be done. An hour later he called me back verifying the waiting period and he was shocked at this. Since I needed to make a mortgage payment,I went to the VA for assistance (I am a 20 year vet). I told them that I lost my job and cannot collect unemployment so I can get assistance from them. They didn't believe me either and made there calls to check, again I was told there is a waiting period, so I got the assistance. Nobody is blowing smoke up my a$$. Like I stated, it's "A hidden fact nobody knows about". Check into it yourself, I will let you.
When you stated that nobody can collect assistance unless they are actively working is not exactly true. Obama used his right to executive order to redefine what work is. I know this refers to the TANF bill that pertains to the welfare system, but what is Obama's definition of work? He states work as: bed rest, personal care activities, massage, exercise, journaling, motivational reading, smoking cessation, work loss promotion,participation in parent-teacher meetings, or helping friends or family with household tasks or errands. To me this is not work.
This makes me think, should I be concerned about the work reports? Well yes, I still need a job that pays money and not depend on hand outs from the government.
You see my friend, Obama is moving us "Forward" to exactly where he always wanted...big government running our lives and create a majority of voters dependent on a government check. That's socialism to me.
Now before you start attacking me because you are pro Obama, take a little time to think and recheck your facts. I believe this website can be a good one if you can be more objective.
Mike
Were you working as an independent contractor? Were you an employee of a contracting firm? Or were you working for the federal government directly? Did you work solidly or off and on over a period of months? Was there a break in your employment? Did they have all of your base period wages recorded or was that part of the problem? Did you apply ... or did they tell you not to apply until some future date?
DeleteYou have to have enough earnings in your base period, and the base period is calculated a bit differently from state to state. The base period is typically 15 months long. If you worked a few weeks in July 2012 but you hadn't worked much earlier in the year, they may need your July earnings to calculate your unemployment. They won't get credit for those July earnings until the quarter closes September 30th, and your former employer files them sometime in late 2012 or early 2013. But that still wouldn't add up to 15 months. If you were working for a contractor as an independent, they may not have paid unemployment insurance on your behalf. I'm sorry that you are in this Catch 22. I still can't understand how any kind of situation could result in a 15 month delay in claims and it seems as though you don't really understand why there is a delay.
In any event, that has nothing to do with Obama "cooking the books" or any kind of Obama plot to lower the unemployment rate. As I said, the unemployment rate is NOT calculated using any numbers gleaned from the state unemployment bureaus. It is based on a population survey of PEOPLE. 60,000 families, about 110,000 people, are contacted monthly about their employment/unemployment status. It's a sample survey.
I am reading the freerepublic article. I've looked at that site before and you have to understand where I come from:
I see the destruction of the middle class as the result of policies that were started during the 80's, under Reagan. I didn't like Reagan, but I do remember thinking, as Reagan was leaving office, that we had dodged a bullet. However, I didn't realize the implications of the years of Reagan policies and how they would all play out.
I actually voted for many Republicans over the years, and I tried not to lay the difficulties that people who were older were having (even in the 90's) at the feet of the Republicans. But sometime in the mid 2000's I started to look at charts of income and wealth inequality. I started to put those charts together with what I knew was happening to the quality, terms, and wages of jobs of people I know. I started to take a long, hard look at Republican policies, and realized that everything the "lefties" (even the moderate Dems) were saying was really true. Trickle down economics, business friendly economics has not worked. The middle class, people like my family and perhaps yours have been decimated.
Now, the Dems aren't perfect, but they are a far cry better than the Republicans at every step. But I'm not going to try to sell that to you. Perhaps one day you will wake up and realize as I have.
More later...
"When you stated that nobody can collect assistance unless they are actively working is not exactly true."
DeleteI'm not sure where I said this and in what context. On this post or elsewhere?
Unemployment benefits is quite a different program from "welfare" which is now the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program.
About unemployment insurance: If people are not actively looking for work while they are collecting unemployment benefits, they are collecting unemployment insurance fraudulently. Some states make people send in confirmation about the number of jobs they have looked for. Some states require documentation in the later weeks of collecting, but not in the earlier weeks of collecting. "Actively looking for work" means something different in the unemployment insurance system than it means in the Current Population Survey (on which the unemployment rate is based.)
Now you bring up TANF, which is an entirely different program than unemployment insurance as I said above.
You wrote:
"Obama used his right to executive order to redefine what work is. I know this refers to the TANF bill that pertains to the welfare system, but what is Obama's definition of work? He states work as: bed rest, personal care activities, massage, exercise, journaling, motivational reading, smoking cessation, work loss promotion,participation in parent-teacher meetings, or helping friends or family with household tasks or errands. To me this is not work."
Find me one source for one quote in which OBAMA says that his definition of work is as you state it. You are being lied to again and you are gullible enough to believe this, Mike.
First of all, Factcheck.org, politifact.org, snopes.com, and the Washington Post factcheck column are your friends. Google and Wikipedia are also good for finding stuff and figuring out what is wrong and what is right. Sometimes you have to go through pages and pages of search results from right wing blogs before you find the real answers, as one blogger copies the next. Liberal blogs sometime do that as well, but it seems much more prevalent among the people who lean right.
So here's the scoop on Obama supposedly "redefining" work. (Of course many righties are racist and they want to equate Obama with some kind of laziness as they see black people as lazy "takers". So being told that Obama is "redefining work to include bed rest" just plays right in line with these racists. I do hope you aren't a racist.)
"Romney’s ad also distorts the facts when it says that under President Obama’s plan “you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job.” The law never required all welfare recipients to work. Only 29 percent of those receiving cash assistance met the work requirement by the time President Obama took office."
Also, Romney signed a letter while he was guv of Mass asking for the exact same kind of "waivers" that Obama just allowed via executive order. The idea is to give the STATES more latitude in determining welfare to work programs. Do you understand that? The states now have more authority, which is what most righties SAY they want.. except when it fits their agenda to not want that authority.
Here's the whole story on the Romney lie:
http://factcheck.org/2012/08/does-obamas-plan-gut-welfare-reform/
And the business about "bed rest" comes from Senator Orin Hatch's Senate page. He uses very convoluted logic to make his case about the "bed rest". Lying, misleading Republicans. And you are allowing yourself to be duped.
Here's that factcheck article in link format:
DeleteDoes Obama's Plan Gut Welfare Reform?
I'm going to the site above,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2829915/posts
You have your blinders on Middle.
The data in that article appears to be outdated.
DeleteI'll just comment on the first jobs numbers report (skipping over the labor force participation report for now). The CES report (The Establishment or Jobs report) on the free republic page was produced January 2012. Not only is it now August, with data available up through July 2012, but the CES numbers are often updated for up to several years after they were originally produced as more accurate data becomes available.
The data on the freerepublic site is fairly close to current numbers for years before 2010, but starting in spring of 2010, the preliminary numbers and the current numbers differ. We had more job growth in 2010 and 2011 than was first reported. Sorry about that. I know you Republicans are happier when fewer people are working.
The article quotes Obama as saying:
"Altogether more private sector jobs were created in 2011 than any year since 2005.”
That statement was completely correct, as one can tell by looking at current data using PRIVATE jobs numbers. The data on the freerepublic page is based on ALL jobs numbers. No wonder the author thinks that Obama is lying.
Please remember that this is the only recovery in which government jobs have decreased... Don't you think it is just great when we have 40 or more kids in a class because we have laid off about 200,000 teachers in the past two years. But you Republicans like that, right?
Typical rightie plan: Overload the government system, complain that it doesn't work, get others to complain that it doesn't work, then lay the ground for privatizing whatever the system is so that your rich benefactors who own the businesses that take over these government functions can get richer. Oh, these rich guys aren't your benefactors? You aren't getting anything from those rich guys? Hmm.. Then why are you doing their bidding?
But I digress..... back to jobs: We added 2,105,000 private sector jobs in 2011. These are the numbers (in thousands) of private sector jobs added in 2000 through 2011: 2000- +1684. 2001- -2312. 2002- -778. 2003- +126. 2004- +1910. 2005- +2312. 2006- +1859. 2007- +812. 2008- -3782. 2009- -4984. 2010- +1248. 2011- +2105.
So far this year, we have only added 1,124,000 private sector jobs.
Jobs lost and gained in 2012 to date
I'll have to look at the rest of that free republic post tomorrow. But so far, the blinders are on the author of the post and anyone who repeats it willy nilly without understanding jobs numbers and what they represent.
First lesson on jobs numbers: There are many different tables and datasets and reports from several different sources. Before you post or share jobs numbers or reports with glee (because you think you are right) do a little checking and see if the person knows what he/she is talking about.
If you want to find the latest data, try this:
Go to www.bls.gov/data . In the search bar, post CES0000000001 . The first result will give you the total non-farm jobs. CES0500000001 in the search will give you the private sector jobs. Throw the numbers up on a spreadsheet and you will see that, yes, we did have the highest increase in private sector jobs in 2011 since 2005.
Now if only we could get teachers back to work..
Open your eyes; get your head out of the right wing blogs, turn off the Faux news, and educate yourself!
It's not 2008 anymore, it's 2012 so stop blaming Bush for everything. If we're going back in history, blame LBJ, Bush1, Clinton, Carter, whatever, but Bush II can't be blamed for Obama's inability to manage a country. He said he'd cut the deficit in half by the end of his term...and he's doubled it. Just saying...
ReplyDeleteI don't blame Bush II as much as I blame the Republicans as a whole. They are a nasty, despicable, selfish bunch of people. I just watched something tonight about the state of affairs in this country back in the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Life for the average urban worker back then was brutal and short, and I contend that if the Republicans could go back to that time of no regulations, no workers' rights, no unions, and low taxes, they would in a heartbeat no matter how much misery it would cost the American people.
DeleteI would suggest you read or at least check out the Draper book which I discuss HERE.
There is no way that the Dems could clean up 30 years of truly miserable destructive policies and programs- that have started the decimation of the middle class- in 4 years. I doubt that Obama made any kind of promise that he'd cut the deficit in half.. more right-wing stuff taken out of context or simply lied about.