About Those Jobs...

I recall last summer, before the election, the Democrats raising the complaint that Bush would be the first President since Hoover to lose jobs during his first term. They began saying he'd lost "2 million jobs!"

If you kept listening over the months, the number kept going down.

"1.9 million jobs!"

"1.5 million jobs!"

The pundits tended to keep mentioning the 2 million job loss figure. Even though that was only the "payroll" number, i.e. the number of jobs held at big companies, and ignored the "household survey", which showed jobs going up if you included the self-employed.

But, it turns out, now that the final payroll numbers are in for the year, 2004 was a fantastic year for job growth, and all the jobs lost from the dot-com implosion and the 9/11 attacks...came back!

We find this information however buried in the very last paragraph of the news story saying jobless claims were the lowest in 4 years last month:

However, in 2004, payroll jobs increased by 2.2 million, after three years of job losses, and last month's job gains allowed President Bush to escape the dubious distinction of being the first president since Herbert Hoover to experience a net job loss during his first term in office.

Well, so much for that talking point!

Basing a political platform on requiring bad news for America is not a recipe for success.