US economy firing on all cylinders
If you’re one of these people, like my aunt in Florida, who still believe that the economy is in bad shape, you might want to take a look at this. Of course, my aunt still thinks Al Gore won the election in 2000, so maybe I shouldn’t use her as an example.
It’s been going on all year. The strong recovery got no respect during the presidential election, as John Kerry and his minions pounded President Bush for presiding over a “Hoover†economy. Kerry said Bush failed to create new jobs, even though traditional measures of economic health have been advancing nicely for two years. The media largely reported it the Kerry way.
Bush may not have been the most adept debater on the economy, but the facts spoke loudly in his favor. The most comprehensive measure of economic health — inflation-adjusted gross domestic product — has been trending steadily around 4 percent for the last two years. This is half a percent above the nation’s 3.5 percent long-run growth trend.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate — which used to be the key election-year labor-market indicator — moved down from 6.3 percent to 5.4 percent, indicating strong U.S. work conditions. Then there’s the 2 percent inflation trend, a stat never mentioned during the campaign but a long stone’s throw from Jimmy Carter’s 15 percent rate of price increases.
Big media let Kerry get away with murder as he obsessed over non-farm payroll jobs, which were slow to recover but have in fact expanded by over 2 million in the past eighteen months. Nonetheless, the other major jobs report — the household survey — went virtually unreported.
The household measure shows a 2.5 million jobs gain during Bush’s first term and a whopping 4.2 million increase since the end of the 2001 recession. It’s a real measure, too: It gives us the unemployment rate. It also does not triple-count job gains or losses, as is the case with the payroll survey, while it does include self-employed workers and independent contractors, key parts of our new Internet-based information economy.
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