The No Jobs President

James K. Galbraith, who heads the University of Texas Inequality Project and who I correspond with fairly often, has today’s lead piece in Salon, The no jobs president. Here’s a highlight:

Next, notice when the deep dive ends. That’s right: It was just after Sept. 11, 2001. It’s true that President Bush ought not to be blamed for the job losses of the Internet bust. But neither can he properly blame his troubles on Osama bin Laden: Job losses slowed down when the war on terror began.

Bush should be judged on the record after that — on the creation of jobs in 2002 and 2003. After all, the recession officially ended in November 2001. How many new jobs did we get since then? An average loss of 22,000 jobs every month.

There are no new jobs. Total job growth in the Clinton years: 23 million. Total job losses so far in the Bush years: over 2 million. Total gains in the last six months, since the so-called recovery supposedly accelerated in the third quarter? Just 221,000. That’s less than a single month’s average under Clinton. And last month? One thousand new jobs.

There’s a lot more, including a discussion of the decline in labor force participation, a cynical (but not inaccurate) take on Bush’s major policies, and a very pessimistic take on Bush’s proposed immigration reform. Read the whole thing.

AB