Today, President Obama’s re-election campaign is pushing the fact that America has seen 26 consecutive months of tepid job growth. This is hardly an impressive figure. From September 2003 to December 2007, George W. Bush oversaw 52 consecutive months of job growth. Bill Clinton had his would-be streak of 86 consecutive months of job growth (April 1993 to May 2000) broken up by three small job-decline months (August 1997 saw a job loss of 18,000 jobs; January 1996 saw a job loss of 19,000 jobs; May 1995 saw a job loss of 16,000 jobs). Ronald Reagan and his successor, George H.W. Bush, would have had 82 consecutive months of job growth, except for one month in which America saw a decline of 93,000 jobs (June 1986).
The question here isn’t the streak. The question is how many jobs have actually been created, and how many people are out of the work force. Job growth has been extraordinarily tepid under Obama, and more and more people are dropping out of the workforce entirely. Obama’s spin notwithstanding, his administration has been a failure on the economy.
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