Kudlow’s Dishonesty Regarding Job Growth

Does Lawrence Kudlow think the readers of National Review are stupid little children who deserve to be lied to:

Long-term jobs growth has moved to an all-time high of 145 million in the household survey and 136 million in nonfarm payrolls. Both measures are rising at about 1.5 percent, the average for jobs growth dating back to 1995 … Tax cuts are a winner. They throw off benefits across the board: capital formation, profitable business, job gains, wage increases, and consumer spending power. You’d think the Dems would learn. But they never do.

Did you spot the deception here? If not, let me cut through the deliberately vague writing style of Lawrence Kudlow. Employment today is about 117% of what payroll employment was back in 1995. But employment today is only 2.28% higher than it was as of December 2000. So during the 5 years and 8 months of the Bush Administration, employment growth has average only 0.4% per year.

When President Clinton signed into law the 1993 tax increase, the free lunch supply-side crowd (that’d be you Larry) said it would lead to lower growth rates for real GDP and employment. They turned out to be wrong. Now Kudlow is trying to tell his readers that the Bush tax cuts led to faster growth, which of course is clearly not true.

Mixing in the high growth years of the late 1990’s with the slow growth years under President Bush is transparently dishonest. Only a complete moron would fall for this obvious deception. I pity the people who Lawrence Kudlow is trying to appeal to as he thinks they are incredibly stupid and deserve to be lied to.

For a real analysis of the labor market – see Menzie Chinn.