The Case for Obama - Part 2: On Trajectories and Private Sector Jobs

(Read Part 1: On Election Mythology)

Yesterday, we covered some of the more pervasive myths about Obama's first term. But, what this is really all about is the next four years. So, let’s look at where we’re heading, with the context of where we've been in our minds. This is where you have to put on those critical thinking caps that your teachers tried so hard to get you to use back in school.

You can look at a snapshot of the economy devoid of any context and say, “It’s bad.” And no one can really argue. But, when you look at trends and trajectories, there’s a lot more going on. The economy isn’t “great” right now, but in the standard electoral question of “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” the answer is pretty clear. First, here's the overall private sector job trend from Obama's first term (all graphs created at BLS.gov):

Obama has recovered all of the jobs lost from his end of the recession. However, I think it's important to look at the way the economy was going before he took office. From January of 2008 to January of 2009, the economy LOST 4.662 MILLION JOBS. In terms of trajectory, that’s an average of 388,500 job losses every month, and the peak was that January of 2009 just before Obama took office, when the economy lost 839,000 IN JUST ONE MONTH! Here's the 2007-2008 private sector job graph:

So, that downward slope is what was happening--for a full year--before president Obama took office. And, as it got closer and closer to him taking over, the trend was heading steeper and steeper downhill.

So then what happened? The economy’s rate of job losses decreased to 734,000 in February, and continued to decrease until the economy lost just 35,000 in February of 2010. From then on, it’s done nothing but gain jobs.

Compare the trend and trajectory from 2008 to 2009: in 2008, it was going downhill like a snowball picking up steam as it went. Obama took office. The snowball started slowing down. Within a year it was stopped, and the economy began to go back in the right direction. Here's the 2009-2010 trend. Notice how it levels off and starts back up again:

Now, let’s look at another trend. From February of 2010 until now, the private sector has gained jobs every month, to the tune of a monthly average increase of 152,452 jobs for 31 straight months. Here's the graph from 2010-2012:

So, which trend is better? -388,500 jobs per month for a year, or +152,452 for almost three years? ARE WE BETTER OFF THAN WE WERE FOUR YEARS AGO? YOU BET!

Now, let’s talk some more trajectory. The economy is recovering, but some say (cough—Romney—cough) that it’s not recovering fast enough. If we just stay at our current average of job gains for the next 52 months—i.e., October-January, plus 48 more months under Obama’s current trajectory—the economy adds 7.928 MILLION private sector jobs.

Romney says that’s not fast enough. I wrote extensively about this earlier on Facebook (and my number there of 7,317,696 jobs is based soley on a comparison of the second term of Obama), but here is the big hiccup in Romney’s jobs plan: he claims his tax and spending policies will create 7 million jobs alone. However, the source he cites is a TEN year projection, not a FOUR year projection. I don’t have to tell you that that’s only 2.8 million jobs over four years, not 7 million. If you read the whole breakdown, his “12 million jobs” over four years is actually 6.3 millions jobs. Obama’s current tractory is more than 1 million jobs MORE than that. So, who’s really too slow?

The point of all of this is not to say everything's great with the economy. I don't feel like Obama has ever tried to say that it is. The point here is to say that the economy was in total free-fall when Obama took office. He stopped that trend, reversed it in just one year, and has us headed in a sustained, positive direction. And beyond that, Mitt Romney's ENTIRE jobs plan--if we're to believe the numbers he cites--would actually slow the private sector job growth.

So, you may not like President Obama. But, if you really feel like Mitt Romney will be better on the economy and jobs, you'll need to find some new data that says so. All that we have now points to Obama handling the economy more strongly in a second term. Oh, and lest you think we’re done with Romney’s tax plans and his claims, we’re just getting started. Tomorrow, we'll move on to Part 3: On Deficits, Taxes, and The Figment of Our Collective Imagination