I’ve written about this issue on a number of occasions, but it’s time for an update.
From Calculated Risk’s recent post Public and Private Sector Payroll Jobs: Bush and Obama:
The employment recovery during Mr. Bush’s first term was very sluggish, and private employment was down 946,000 jobs at the end of his first term. At the end of Mr. Bush’s second term, private employment was collapsing, and there were net 665,000 jobs lost during Mr. Bush’s two terms.
The recovery has been sluggish under Mr. Obama’s presidency too, and there were only 1,933,000 more private sector jobs at the end of Mr. Obama’s first term. A couple of months into Mr. Obama’s second term, there are now 2,282,000 more private sector jobs than when he took office.
A big difference between Mr. Bush’s tenure in office and Mr. Obama’s presidency has been public sector employment. The public sector grew during Mr. Bush’s term (up 1,748,000 jobs), but the public sector has declined since Obama took office (down 718,000 jobs). These job losses have mostly been at the state and local level, but they are still a significant drag on overall employment.
Here’s total private employment under each president:
And here’s public employment:
A couple points worth emphasizing:
- Given the nature of public employment (teachers, public safety officers, etc.), it would make sense that such jobs would increase at the same rate as population growth. So the decline in recent years has been starker than it might at first appear.
- Note that the pace of private employment growth even during the best times under both Bush and Obama is pretty much the same.