Obamanomics 101
Remember, folks, according to our economist-in-chief, the private sector is doing fine.
This from WaPo, which reports that the last three years have “wiped out nearly two decades of Americans’ wealth, according to government data released Monday, with middle-class families bearing the brunt of the decline.”
The Federal Reserve said the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That puts Americans roughly on par with where they were in 1992.
The data represent one of the most detailed looks at how the economic downturnaltered the landscape of family finance. Over a span of three years, Americans watched progress that took almost a generation to accumulate evaporate. The promise of retirement built on the inevitable rise of the stock market proved illusory for most. Homeownership, once heralded as a pathway to wealth, became an albatross.
The findings underscore the depth of the wounds of the financial crisis and how far many families remain from healing. If the recession set Americans back 20 years, economists say, the road forward is sure to be a long one. And so far, the country has seen only a halting recovery.
Obama was forced to backpedal his ‘doing fine’ gaffe, explaining that it was taken out of context and what he really meant was that the private sector is doing just fine compared to the public sector, which has bled jobs because of Republican-led budget cuts. The progressive, lean-forward solution? Reach into the taxpayers’ pockets and hire more government workers. Only one problem: Reality.
Private-sector jobs are still down by 4.6 million, or 4%, from January 2008, when overall employment peaked. Meanwhile government jobs are down just 407,000, or 1.8%. Federal employment actually is 225,000 jobs above its January 2008 level, an 11.4% increase. That’s right, up 11.4%.
Private payrolls have been trending higher in the last couple of years while government has been shedding staff. But that’s because governments did not cut jobs right away. Overall government employment didn’t peak until April 2009, 16 months after the recession started. It didn’t fall below their January 2008 level until September 2010.
The recession was boomtime for federal employment, especially after Obama took office. Federal jobs kept rising (excluding a temporary Census surge in early 2010) until March 2011 — more than three years after overall payrolls peaked.
And then there’s this data mine explored by Marc Thiessen over at American Enterprise:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for government workers last month was just 4.2 percent (up slightly from 3.9 percent a year ago).
Compare that to private-sector industries such as:
-Construction: 14.2% unemployment
-Leisure and hospitality services: 9.7%
-Agriculture: 9.5%
-Professional and business services: 8.5%
-Wholesale and retail trade: 8.1%
As AEI’s own Andrew Biggs points out, the public-sector unemployment rate “is the lowest of any industry or class of worker, even including the growing energy industry.” If the rest of Americans enjoyed the same unemployment rate as government workers, Obama would be cruising to reelection.
Americans aren’t; Obama isn’t.
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