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Make up Your Mind, Obama

Submitted by Yossi Gestetner on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 09:18
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In his CNN interview this Sunday, President Obama said that people should expect a weak job market. He claimed that an economy adding 150,000 jobs a month is needed to keep up with the current population growth, but for now people should not expect such job numbers.

This is a little confusing, because less than a month ago, the White House economic team proclaimed that the Stimulus bill “created or saved” 1 million jobs. Considering that only six full monthly job reports were published since the signing of the stimulus, it means that an average of 166,666 jobs were “created or saved” on a monthly basis.

So Mr. President, make up your mind: is our economy getting the needed 150,000 jobs per month, or not?

(This thought was also posted this morning on my webpage, here)

 

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By all means criticize the claim

Submitted by Mead50 on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 13:21.

If you want to criticize the claim that 1 million jobs were created or saved, go right ahead - I'd be interested in seeing the data, I don't think this claim has gotten enough scrutiny. However - simple reading comprehension says that the two claims you cite are not contradictory, as you imply. In other words - even if 1 million jobs were created or saved, that is still not enough jobs.

It IS a contraditcion

Submitted by Yossi Gestetner on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 13:30.

wrong, if 1 million jobs were created or saved within six months, it gives us 166,666 jobs per month, more than the 150,000 target Obama spoke about.

The total job loss in 2008 was 2.6 million.

Submitted by Mead50 on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 14:21.

Take that fact and add in natural population growth and you will see that you can have both "1 million jobs saved or created" and still not have enough jobs, because the decline in 2008 was so catastrophic. You are wrong to say that the two statements contradict each other.