File Buz

The full chart can be seen at http://my.democrats.org/Jobs-Chart.

The Obama administration feels the Presidents jobs record is being distorted by his Republican opponents. The Democratic Party distributed this information to try to set the record straight. The data are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the government agency that calculates and publishes the official record of labor market activity.

Note that this graph is for private sector jobs. If you take a closer look at the monthly labor reports you will see that government employment has been decreasing during much of this period. In other words, if the number of federal government jobs were not decreasing, the employment situation would be even better.

There is a legitimate debate to be had about the extent to which current policies have helped or hindered economic recovery. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the government agency of professional economists who advise all members of Congress about the impact of proposed policies, has consistently reported that recent government stimulus spending has aided the economic recovery and has improved U.S. employment from what it would have been in the absence of such spending. It is not a popular message with the opponents of the President. But it is consistent with mainstream economic theory.