Job Losses Under Bush and Obama

Below is a chart prepared by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office showing job losses under Bush and Obama since December of 2007. The point is obvious: Fewer jobs have been lost since Obama took office as compared to the final year of Bush's second term. Since both the media and Republicans are factually challenged, we are not sure how much play this will get, but we thought we should share it with our readers.

PD Article: NE Ohio Bleeding Jobs

The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an article on Monday, December 15, 2008, about the number of job losses that Northeast Ohio has sustained during the past year. This picture is from the article.

According to the article, NE Ohio has lost 7,000 jobs through the end of October. This means that the article doesn't take into consideration the job losses in November, which, at least nationally, was a horrible month.

You can read the whole article by clicking on the link above.

September Job Loss Worse So Far in 2008: 159,000 Jobs

We have updated our chart showing the number of jobs lost in 2008, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. As you can see, the job loss in September was particularly bad. In a bad year, September managed to be the worst so far, with 159,000 jobs bleeding out of our economy.

This statistic is, of course, real bad news for the McCain campaign. Americans are waking up to the fact that the trickle-down approach of the Bushies is not working, if it ever did, and they are looking for something different. What is McCain offering? Just more of the same.



You can view the page which contains the data which we used to make the 2008 Job Losses Chart here.

GOP Policies Suck at Creating Jobs

There are over 500,000 American jobs that existed at the beginning of 2008 that don't exist now. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that over 80,000 jobs were lost in August. In 2008 there has not been a month that has not seen a loss of jobs.

According to the BLS, the unemployment rate hit 6.1% in August, the highest unemployment rate in five years. According to the BLS report, dated September 5, 2008, all sectors of the economy showed a loss of jobs. This means that the unemployment is spreading out from the sectors that started reporting job losses earlier this year such as construction and financial services.

The Republicans have controlled the White House for the last 92 months. During that time, 34 months have seen job losses. During the first 92 months of the Clinton Administration, there were only five months that saw job losses.

The graph below shows the number of jobs created or lost in one month increments from January 1, 1993 until August 31, 2008. The numbers on the left hand side represent jobs in units of 1000, so at the top of the graph where you see the number "500", that represents a gain of 500,000 jobs. The number at the bottom of the left hand side, "250", represents a loss of 250,000 jobs.



During the best Bush month, July of 2005, 368,000 jobs were created. During the best Clinton month, September of 1997, 508,000 jobs were created. During the worse Clinton month, March of 1993, 51,000 jobs were lost. During the worse Bush month so far, October of 2001, 325,000 jobs were lost.

The historical record seems pretty clear: GOP policies suck at creating jobs.

Columbus Dispatch Reports 2006 Manufacturing Job Losses

The Columbus Reported that 2006 tied 2003 for record number of job losses in Ohio's manufacturing sector. Ohio has now lost over 200,000 manufacturing jobs. It's percentage of people employed in manufacturing has gone from 17% of the work force down to 14%. A big reason is competition from overseas companies. This state is seeing the loss of good paying jobs.

The media likes to report on unemployment figures. Unemployment figures, though, are only the tip of the analysis. If you are replacing manufacturing jobs with service industry jobs and if such jobs don't pay as much, then consumers have less money to spend. Consumers spending less will eventually result in fewer jobs in the service sector. It means consumers having less money to spend on doctors, lawyers, insurance, dentists, and other professions who think their education will protect them from the effects of Ohio losing manufacturing jobs.