The GOP's Big Lie on Job Creation

The entire Republican case in the election rests on the following claim, being made in varying wordings in the stump speeches of both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan:

"Without a doubt President Obama inherited a difficult situation. Here's the problem: He made it worse!"

The above graph, showing average annual job creation under Democratic and Republican administrations since 1945, with 2009 separated out as a year in which the disastrous level of job loss was plainly the result of the policies under George W. Bush, shows just how wrong that assertion is.

Since the effect of the stimulus and other Obama policies took effect, the level of job creation in his administration has been higher than that under four of the last six Republican presidents.

For the full story, see a piece I did for the New York Times this week:, "Has Obama Made the Job Situation Worse?"

Progressive Point of the Day: This is part of a series of brief pieces that will offer suggestions to the Obama campaign and progressives on effective points to raise and ways to frame their argument. Consider it an advice column for Democrats, who have been having messaging problems for years. Despite the "Point of the Day" tag, it will not appear every day, but it will appear often between now and the election.

 

 

 

Follow Robert S. McElvaine on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@BobMcElvaine

Comments

[MassWG]

09:40 AM on 08/27/2012

The world is full of contradictory charts. Few of them mean much, especially if they are based on averages rather than individual years. This one, for example, paints a very different picture:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/Unemployment.jpg

[Tailless]

11:16 AM on 08/28/2012

Even if you do show individual years, no matter what point you want to prove, you can use a chart to find a correlation. However, correlation does not imply causation and cherry picking X and Y values for your chart is just disingenuous. The fact is that while congress and president have an effect, there are hundreds or thousands of other variables that need to be adjusted for, and finding the actual cause of the numbers you see is much more involved then finding a correlation that fits your political beliefs.

[MassWG]

12:12 PM on 08/28/2012

I agree completely. My counter-example was meant to show that both sides can find ways to use the same basic raw numbers to reach opposite conclusions.

But when you use individual years rather than averages, you can at least see the trends and make better guesses on causation on the basis of what direction the economy has been heading (like going into recession or coming out of recession).