NationStates Jolt Archive

I put this on another thread but I think that it deserves its own.

I hear so much about how many jobs have been lost under the Bush Administration.

Neal Boortz does a great job of explaining this liberal propaganda.

HAVE WE REALLY LOST JOBS UNDER GEORGE BUSH?

John Kerry is responding to a slide in his poll numbers by stepping up the rhetoric against George Bush on issues economic. Kerry is saying that Bush has created "more excuses than jobs." Very clever. Kerry is now calling the last for years the "Excuse presidency."

Let's play with jobs numbers a bit. If you're new to Nealz Nuze, or if you aren't a listener to my show, you're going to learn a few things you didn't know before.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics produces two separate jobs reports. One is called the Establishment Survey, the other is the Household Survey. These two surveys use different methodologies in measuring the number of people working and the rate of job growth or job loss. The Establishment Survey questions a set list of established businesses every month on their employment numbers. The Household Survey questions thousands of American households to see if household members are working, not working, looking for jobs, retired, etc.

There is a fairly big problem with the Establishment Survey. Since the list of businesses canvassed every month for this survey is fairly static, any new businesses out there that have started in the last year or so won't be included. Let's say you have a mythical town with three employers. One large manufacturing plant that employs 1000 people, and two small businesses that have a combined employment of 60. The large manufacturing facility has been in operation for 20 years and is a part of the government's monthly Establishment Survey. The two small businesses were only formed late last year and are not on the Establishment Survey. So ... let's say that in August the plant dismisses 5 people, but the small businesses hire those five people and about five more. Additionally, four other residents have started businesses from their homes. The Establishment Survey would show a net job loss in this town of five jobs in the September report. The Household Survey, on the other hand, would show a net job increase of nine jobs.

Remember now, politicians generally like to use government statistics to prove the need for more government or to prove that their political foes are doing a bad job. This means, of course, that the Democrats and the Kerry campaign will eagerly point to the Establishment Survey to prove that George Bush is losing jobs, not creating them.

By now I would bet that you're just screaming for me to get to the point. What figures do we get from the latest Household Survey?

Hold on ... let's go back to Kerry for a moment. Kerry says that Bush is the first president in 72 years to record a net loss of jobs during his term. Kerry puts that number at 900,000 jobs. NOW is the time to compare the two survey totals.

On September 3rd the Bureau of Labor Statistics published it's numbers. The Establishment Survey showed that 131.5 million people were employed in non-farm jobs during August. The Household Survey showed a total employment figure of 138.7 million. That's a difference of 8.2 million jobs ... 8.2 million more Americans actually working than the numbers Kerry cites. That sort of wipes out Kerry's 900,000 job loss, don't you think?

Come on, folks. How in the world can you ignore small businesses when you report job numbers? Most of the jobs in this country are in small businesses, the very businesses that can take up to two years to register on the government's Establishment Survey. Job growth numbers in the small business private sector lag for a year or more behind than job numbers in large employers. In other words ... the numbers Kerry is relying on are meaningless in the short term.

One more thing ... Bush inherited an economic recession that began under Bill Clinton --- then you had the dot-com bust and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. By any measure that's a tough hand to play. I wonder how The Soufflé would have performed?

So that's that. Let's put this to rest shall we?

If possible please post a link. It helps, as people can then judge otherthings as in intent and bias.

And it seems to me, that he's skewing things a bit. It would be better to compare the establishment survey to itself, 2003 vs 2000 and the household survey to itself 2003 vs 2000 to get a better understanding if jobs are lost or gained.

Are those two methods really the only two methods they have of measuring unemployment? Thats silly. What about, oh, looking at how many people paid their income tax instead? Wouldn't that give accurate numbers rather than two different kind of 'statistical numbers'.

Are those two methods really the only two methods they have of measuring unemployment? Thats silly. What about, oh, looking at how many people paid their income tax instead? Wouldn't that give accurate numbers rather than two different kind of 'statistical numbers'.
Possible, but I believe income tax applies to any type of income, rather than just salary. With the possible exception of child support payments, not sure about that.
Plus there are people who are employed but do not pay income taxes.

And I assume that workplaces/employers don't have to register with some sort of federal bureau? If they did, it would seem natural to register number of employees at the same time. Thats what they do over here.

I put this on another thread but I think that it deserves its own.

Neal Boortz does a great job of explaining this liberal propaganda.

...

So that's that. Let's put this to rest shall we?


A nice bit of trickery in there!

Pointing out the structural differences between the two surveys and then trying to take the current diference between the Household Survey and the Establishment Survey as negating the job loss number? How is that valid?

Oh right - it's not.

Here is another newsflash: The Household survey has ALWAYS exceeded the Establishment survey - for much the same reasons as this gentleman noted. Using Kerry matching todays Establishment Survey to the one four years ago and trying to deem it as unvalid, and then trying to only compare to today's Houshold survey is not a good argument. You also need to compare to the Household Survey of four years ago else you are comparing apples to oranges.

Now, if you go back and match the 2000 Houshold Surveys to todays and line that up against population growth... guess what?


Yep - you guessed it: Still the same general ratio of job loss as we see with the Establishment Survey numbers over the same period.



Guess the "propganda" (as you call it) might just be true....

:rolleyes:

Well Zepp covered it just fine.

I just read that 400000 IT jobs have been lost but by the suggested report maybe they just don't realise they are working.

Under-Employment always seems to be dropped off as well. An engineer working at starbucks is not a healthy economy.

The Repubs have a major problem going for the Computer Science aspects of this country. Some schools (in California) have reported a 20% drop in enrollment.....

"Dey took ur jebs?"