Obama : " Economic Recovery Is As Bad As It Appears"
By JOHN MERLIN , INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 10/25/2012 08:05 AM ET
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In a previously off-the-record interview with the Des Moines Register, President Obama argued that the economic recovery he's overseen isn't as bad as his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, claims. "In many ways, because of the actions we took early on, we're actually ahead of pace in the typical recovery out of a recession like this," Obama said.
It's a point Obama and his supporters have made on occasion throughout the campaign. Earlier this year, Obama told attendees at a fundraiser about the "extraordinary progress" the economy was making. His deputy campaign manager recently claimed that Obama created more jobs than Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush had at similar points in their economic recoveries. First Lady Michelle Obama told a local Washington, D.C., radio station that the country was in the midst of a "huge" recovery. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/art...yssey=nav|head
But the data are clear that Obama's economic recovery — which started in June 2009, five months after he was sworn in — has been worse than any recovery since the Great Depression. Overall economic growth has been slower in this recovery than in any of the previous post-World War II recoveries, according to the Minneapolis Fed, using data from Bureau of Economic Analysis. http://www.minneapolisfed.org/public...n_perspective/
In the 12 quarters since the Obama recovery started, real GDP has climbed 6.7%. That's below even the GDP growth rate in the 12 quarters after the 1980 recession ended — despite the fact that there was the intervening deep and prolonged 1981-82 recession.
The picture isn't any better when looking at job growth.
Obama often boasts that the economy has added 5.2 million private-sector jobs in the 31 months since employment bottomed out in February 2010. But that rate of job growth lags every previous recovery as well if, as Obama does, you start counting at the point where jobs bottomed out.
Bush oversaw 5.3 million new private-sector jobs in the 31 months after employment hit bottom in mid-2003. Under Reagan, private-sector jobs climbed 8.2 million during a comparable time period.
What's more, Obama's recovery has reclaimed only about half the jobs lost during the recession. That's a far cry from prior recoveries, which saw the number of jobs exceed the previous peak by this point.
In fact, had job growth under Obama kept pace with the previous worst recovery since World War II, there would be nearly 6 million more people with jobs today.
To be fair, the president uses a qualifier in his quote, comparing his recovery to others "out of a recession like this."
Read More At IBD: http://news.investors.com/102512-630...#ixzz2AXHecpF9