Obama Is Trying To Re-Write His Jobs Record

Yesterday, following the release of the June employment report, the President told this to an adoring crowd:

“Now, this morning, we learned that our businesses created another 223,000 jobs last month. (Applause) The unemployment rates now down to 5.3 percent. (Applause) Keep in mind, when I came into office, it was hovering around 10 percent. All told we’ve now seen 64 straight months of private sector job growth, which is a new record. (Applause) 12.8 million new jobs all told...” (Applause)

If only it were true.

When Obama came to Office, the unemployment rate was 7.5%; not hovering around 10. Also, he promised that, with the stimulus, we would be at 5.3% three years ago in 2012.  Oh, and by the way.  His stimulus plan was supposed to keep the unemployment rate below 8%.  Instead, it went to 10.  In support of those projections, he submitted this chart that has been annotated with red data points to reflect the actual data:

64 months ago, in March 2010, the number of unemployed was 15 million with the size of the workforce being 153.9 million.  As of June, 8.3 million were without jobs and the workforce was at 157 million.  In theory, the increase in the workforce by 3.1 million and the reduction of the unemployed by 6.7 million should tell us how many jobs were created in the last 64 months.  My math says 9.8 million.  Three million shy of the President's 12.8 million claim.

Lastly, as to 64 months of jobs creation being a new record?  It was a very long and painful time to get to this point. Not something I personally would think that President Obama should be bragging about.

References:

Obama On June Jobs Report:  https://grabien.com/story.php?id=31596

Chart Source 1: http://www.aei.org/publication/the-awful-awful-august-jobs-report/

Another Chart: http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/the-obama-stimulus-three-years-of-failure

Employment Report January 2009: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archive/empsit_02062009.pdf 

Employment Report March 2010: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_04022010.pdf

Employment Report June 2015: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf