Greg Mankiw on the Employment-Population Ratio

I see that his blog Mankiw shows a chart of the employment population ratio to make a comment about the “so called recovery”.

But he selected the start date of the chart so that you could not see that during the eight years of the Bush administration the employment-population fell from 63.0 to 60.3, a 2.7 drop.

Since Obama took office the employment-population fell from 60.3 to 58.6, a 1.7 drop.

The ratio has done poorly under both administrations, but people who live in glass houses should be careful about throwing rocks.


If you measure from the end of the recession you get similar results.