The Jobless Recovery? You Be the Judge

According to the Economic Policy Institute, “Every citizen can grade the Bush [tax cut] policy by checking the non-farm payroll employment series each month. Any month that adds at least 344,000 jobs to the economy can be marked a success. And every month payroll grows by less than 257,000 jobs, the policy is generating fewer jobs than would have been created without the “Jobs and Growth” plan.”

In October, the Administration boasted about the 126,000 jobs created. While that’s good news, it fell short of the number needed to make up for the huge losses experienced early in 2001, and ignores the roughly 2.3 million Americans who have given up looking for a job.

But you be the judge. The president’s Council of Economic Advisors projected that the Bush tax cut package or “Jobs and Growth Plan” would create 306,000 new jobs each month starting in June 2003. So far, this hasn’t happened. October’s results were 180,000 jobs short, and the cumulative shortfall since June is now 995,000.

In a signal that the Administration may be ready to concede that the job growth figures used to sell their tax cut weren’t realistic, the October 21st New York Times reported that Treasury Secretary John Snow is now projecting a more modest monthly job growth of about 200,000 jobs per month – far short of the number of jobs the Administration promised the tax cut would create.

To monitor national jobs and wages, go to www.jobwatch.org.