Hello pomple-ga,
According to government statistics, George W. Bush is indeed the first
president under which jobs have been lost since Herbert Hoover.
Showing that this is true requires looking at a few sets of
statistics. (Note: When you get to the part of the answer instructing
you how to obtain these statistics, I would suggest that you open each
set of statistics in a different window on your computer, so that you
can toggle back and forth among them.)
Two articles reporting specific statistics are:
"George Walker Hoover?", by Daniel Gross (April 30, 2003)
Slate
http://slate.msn.com/id/2082321/
"Jobs have decreased during Bush presidency" (09/28/2003)
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/economy.htm
Both articles cite figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The
USA TODAY article also cites its own research, which might explain why
I can't find a Bureau of Labor Statistics chart that matches the
percentage given by that paper for Herbert Hoover. (I tried another
president, John F. Kennedy, and the USA Today figures didn't match the
BLS charts either.) The USA TODAY figures may be correct, but I don't
know the specific basis. I will focus therefore on the Slate article.
The Slate article provides the following statistics:
Herbert Hoover -- "the number of Americans with payroll jobs fell 24
percent, from 31.32 million to 23.69 million"
Bill Clinton -- "in the 16 months after the passage of the 1993
Clinton budget plan, which raised marginal income tax rates on the
highest earners, payrolls rose from 110.96 million to 115.92 million"
George W. Bush -- "In the 22 months since President Bush signed his
tax cuts in June 2001, the number of payroll jobs has fallen from
132.11 million to 130.41 million in March 2003."
These statistics come from two charts, both from a page entitled
"Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment
Statistics survey (National)" (
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ee ).
For the statistics for Herbert Hoover, you should retrieve the data
for "Total Nonfarm Employment - Not Seasonally Adjusted -
EEU00000001". You will need to change the output options so that you
can see back to at least 1929. The numbers, in thousands, for the
relevant years are:
1929 -- 31324
1933 -- 23699
For the statistics for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, you should
retrieve the data for "Total Nonfarm Employment - Seasonally Adjusted
- EES00000001". The relevant numbers are:
Aug 1993 -- 110957
Dec 1994 -- 115918
Jun 2001 -- 132108
Mar 2003 -- 130396 [preliminary figure, presumably corrected to
approximately 130410]
The "not seasonally adjusted" statistics are necessary for Herbert
Hoover's presidency, as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency
through 1938, since the seasonally adjusted stastistics start in 1939.
Using the not seasonally adjusted figures for 1933 and April 1945
(when Roosevelt died), you'll see that employment skyrocketed during
his administration.
Using either the not seasonally adjusted or seasonally adjusted charts
for the other administrations, you'll find that all of the presidents
from Roosevelt to Clinton had job growth during their tenure. The
easiest way to read the charts for Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, G.H.W.
Bush, and Clinton is from January of their first year (1953, 1977,
1981, 1989, 1993) to the January when they left office (1961, 1981,
1989, 1993, 2001). For the other presidents, because their terms
started and ended in different months, you won't have the convenience
of looking in one column. But, if you want to do a quick comparison,
you can round off their terms to the nearest January.
As for George W. Bush, the statistics on the charts end in April 2003.
As both charts indicate in a footnote, these statistics are now being
measured under a different system. (If you're curious about the
technicalities, you can go to the page mentioned in that footnote (
http://www.bls.gov/ces/cesnaics.htm ), though I don't think it's
necessary for your purposes.)
The new seasonally adjusted chart can be found on another Bureau of
Labor Statistics page ( http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?bls ).
You should retrieve the data for "Total Nonfarm Employment -
Seasonally Adjusted - CES0000000001". On that chart, the figures for
January 2001 and September 2003 (preliminary) are 132436 and 129862.
So on this chart too, there is a significant decline during the time
of George W. Bush's presidency. This chart, like the other two
charts, reflects growth in jobs during other presidencies. (This
chart also goes back only to 1939, so you can only see the figures for
part of Roosevelt's tenure.)
- justaskscott-ga
Search terms used on Google:
"job losses" "herbert hoover" bush
"bureau of labor statistics" "herbert hoover" bush
I also browsed the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site (
http://www.bls.gov/home.htm ) |
