Barack Obama’s Achilles heel has been the recession he inherited from George Bush, and without the economy showing real signs of growth — as in new jobs being created — the president will remain vulnerable. But there is (fingers crossed) at long last good news.
The December job report released this morning by the Labor Department shows that non-farm employment rose by a robust 200,000 jobs with private employers adding 212,000 of those jobs, while the unemployment rate dipped against from 8.7 to 8.5 percent. Meanwhile, government jobs fell by 12,000.
The job growth was fairly broad. Construction employment rose despite there being little residential construction, while manufacturing employment also increased, all of it attributable to durable-goods production. Service-sector employment, especially in health-care industries, added substantially to the growth.
Everyone from Obama on down (congressional Republicans conspicuously not included) who has worked to stroke the economy know that it is not yet time to break out the champagne. There are still 13 million unemployed Americans, but a durable recovery finally seems to be in sight.
The economy has added 1.5 million jobs over the last year, and the pace seems to be picking up, while the unemployment rate last month is at its lowest level since February 2009, Mr. Obama’s first full month in office.
There were false signs of a recovery in early 2010 and early 2011 when job growth picked up briefly before the continuing global financial crisis again reasserted itself.
Aside from those congressional Republicans, the news is especially bad for GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney, whose chances of beating the incumbent rest on bad economic news continuing.
Romney is campaigning as a jobs creator — which is a stretch if not an outright lie — and asserts that Obama has been a job destroyer — which is an outright lie.
He asserts that he created over 100,000 new jobs as a venture capitalist, primarily through the creation of Staples, The Sports Authority and Domino’s Pizza, which is true when you don’t factor in the tens of thousands of jobs that were lost when companies were run into the ground. And while 1.9 million fewer Americans have jobs as did when Obama took office, he cannot be held responsible for job losses in the first few months when the economy was still in free fall.
Paul Krugman notes in The New York Times that the Bush administration’s claims of job growth started not from Inauguration Day but from August 2003, when Bush-era employment hit its low point. By that standard, Obama could say that he has created 2.5 million jobs.
Marcus Bullus, trading director at MB Capital, said that the December growth was “one hell of a number. Such an impressive fall in both the number of jobless Americans and the unemployment rate will cheer everyone bar Republican spin doctors.”
Indeed.