A new claim about job creation appears to be bubbling up through the Democratic ranks. Here is the clearest statement of that claim, from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) on Stuart Varney’s show:
On the pace that we’re on, with job creation in the last four months, if we continue on that pace, and all the leading economists say that it is likely that we will, we will have created more jobs in this year than in the entire Bush Presidency.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz is picking her timeframes carefully, in particular by ignoring the four million jobs lost during the first 11 months of a Presidency that is so far 16 months old.
Even today, after five straight months of job growth, three million fewer people are working than when President Obama took office. That’s hardly something to brag about.
And looking just at last month’s strong net increase of 431,000 jobs, we see that nine out of ten net new jobs were temporary government jobs for census takers. We all hope the pace of private job creation accelerates, but it’s too soon to declare this a strong and consistent employment recovery or to project its trend into the rest of the year.
Let’s look at how Ms. Wasserman Schultz justifies her claim.
