CBS’s Mark Knoller, covering a town hall on the economy with the president this morning, reports: “President Obama blames high unemployment rate on ‘huge layoffs of government workers’ at federal, state and local levels.”
This is completely wrong. Extremely and mind-bogglingly wrong. Epically wrong.
First, let’s look at the numbers for private-sector employment. All figures come from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Recent peak of private-sector employment, June 2007: 116,603,000.
Total private-sector employment in the month Obama became president, January 2009: 109,084,000.
Recent low of private-sector employment, January 2010: 104,933,000.
Total private-sector employment, April 2011: 108,494,000 (Seasonally adjusted: 108,862,000).
So note, we are about 8 million away from the most recent peak in private-sector employment.
Now, let’s look at total government employment (at all levels) for those four months:
June 2007: 22,176,000.
January 2009: 22,471,000.
January 2010: 22,376,000.
April 2011: 22,594,000 (preliminary).
As you can see, in terms of total number of Americans employed in government, there has been no real discernible recession. In fact, the number has increased slightly.
Now let’s look at the number of people employed in state government during these months:
June 2007: 4,918,000.
January 2009: 5,116,000.
January 2010: 5,053,000.
April 2011: 5,253,000 (preliminary).
Again, not only pretty stable, but slowly climbing.
Now let’s look at employment in local government:
June 2007: 14,514,000.
January 2009: 14,583,000.
January 2010: 14,478,000.
April 2011: 14,492,000 (preliminary).
Again, the numbers are stable, and even indicate that local government employment is increasing, not decreasing.
Obama is not even a little bit right. Will anyone call him out on this?
UPDATE: The full quote is here:
“The reason the unemployment rate is still as high as it is, in part, is because there have been huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level,” he said. “Teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers– they have really taken it in the chin over the last several months. And so, what we’re trying to do is to see if we can stabilize the budget.”
Again, completely false. There has not been a significant reduction — or even variation, really — in the size of the government workforce at the federal, state, and local level.
ANOTHER UPDATE: In the comments, Reno Dave notes that in one case I used seasonally-adjusted numbers instead of non-seasonally adjusted numbers. I have added the non-seasonally-adjusted number for consistency. He notes that using the seasonally adjusted numbers, the total government workforce has varied slightly differently in the selected months:
June 2007: 22,218,000.
January 2009: 22,582,000.
January 2010: 22,488,000.
April 2011: 22,166,000 (preliminary).
You end up with 300,000 or so fewer government workers in the past 16 months. (Notice that the Census hiring effects these numbers a bit; the number of Census employees went from 24,000 in January 2010 to 564,000 in May 2010 all the way down to 1,000 in October 2010. More details here.)
However, that’s a fraction of the 12.3 million unemployed Americans above age 20 in the most recent BLS report. In other words, if we presume that none of those 300,000 laid off government workers have been rehired anywhere, they make up about 2.4 percent of the currently unemployed.
This is the kind of thing that separates politicians (particularly Democrats) from the rest of the citizens. They will stand up and lie to your face and not even blink an eye. You know they're lying and they know you know they're lying, yet still they do it. Normal, decent Americans don't do that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDoes that 22 million federal employees include the military?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNow this is the type of post I like from you, bringing facts to make a point.
I'm sorry it will not generate as many comments as your stupid posts.
Anyway when you write like this, I remember why you used to be my go to spot on NRO. Now you've slipped to number 4, but still I cannot read NRO without seeing what you have to say.
BZ
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe he was looking at it like most politicians look at budget growth. Since in his perfect world he was looking to hire 25 million in federal and pushing for over 6 million in state and 16-17 million in local those are massive cuts. If they can call a smaller growth in spending a draconian cut that will put grandma out on the street with only one can of Alpo, then they can get away with this. Unfortunately, the LSM will not call him on this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs of April 2011, approximately 43,000,000 people work for federal, state, or local government--that is what is mind-boggling.
Expansive government at all levels along with voting demographics trending heavily democratic in the future is further proof that America we know & love is finished...we just don't realize it yet.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"This is the kind of thing that separates politicians (particularly Democrats) from the rest of the citizens. They will stand up and lie to your face and not even blink an eye. You know they're lying and they know you know they're lying, yet still they do it"
I can see the 'journolist' e-mails going out right now. Watch out for massive mainstream media coverage as to why unemployment is so high - it's to do with gov layoffs. We will have endless 'coverage' of this from now on. As far as they are concerned it's by any means necessary to get him re-elected.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe Goolsbee can get on TV and explain this issue for us all. I mean is quite the job cheerleader even though he has never created a job or had one in my opinion.
President Obama proves everytime he speaks how incompetent he is on all levels of life. Maybe he can blame it on math is hard, like Barbie Pelosi.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm sorry, but I think some of you are miss reading the numbers, or perhaps you are referencing a different source.
"total government employment (at all levels)"
"April 2011: 22,594,000"
"number of people employed in state government"
"April 2011: 5,253,000"
"employment in local government"
"April 2011: 14,492,000"
So 22,594,000 - 5,253,000 - 14,492,000 = 2,849,000
So total federal work for is a little under 3 million.
Total government - state - local = federal
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am with Ellen on this unless the 22 million are federal employees only and not the total of all government employees. I am just guessing that your first governmental number is just federal employees and not total government employees at all levels.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe president is a 100% liar about Public Sector Employment Numbers and thats a Fact Barack!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLeave aside for a moment the question of the truthfulness of Obama’s comment. Even if the comment were true, it’s still really tone-deaf given how quickly the public has turned against public employees. We all have friends and family who work for the government whom we know to be great people and who probably do good work at whatever job they have. Even so, much light has been shed in the last few years on how great government workers have it, and as a result, solidarity with government workers among everyone else has dramatic decreased. No one of goodwill cheers when any decent person loses his or her job, but if in fact public employment is decreasing, I think most people these days would view that as a step in the right direction and ultimately essential for our economy’s recovery.
People ultimately don’t want excuses. People ultimately judge the economy based on what they observe in the world around them. There may be indicators that the economy is getting better, but people are still going to judge this economy as awful not because they are ignorant but because they rightfully judge the economy based on their current situation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs a displaced building contractor, now an underemployed FEDERAL EMPLOYEE, I can tell you that the numbers are HOGWASH! We are worked for a maximum of 1039 Hrs, and then laid off, they use the numbers to say they create new jobs, when it's not a FULL TIME JOB!?! Temporary. THEN they use the LAYOFF numbers to "say" it's the cause of high numbers? NOT TRUE! Obama hasn't a clue! It's been this way for years....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama's math is usually so off that it's the either simply wrong, or even the opposite of the truth. Why would we expect any differences this time?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRequest clarification. For this analysis, you focus on particular dates of private sector employment, but similar analysis is not performed for public sector dates for the first and third comparissons. Are we to assume that the peak and low-points of public employment occurred at the same times as the peak and low-points of private employment. To avoid criticism that your analysis is flawed in this way, what were the high and low peaks for public employment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you, Jim.
Obama counts on the majority of his supporters to take his word without fact checking or research. He knows these same supporters are caught up in his unicorn and rainbow dreams of hopenchange. He counts on that emotion, not intelligence or education of issues. It does not occur to Obama, or any Democrat, that the real reason for unemployment today is the declining private sector for jobs, and large companies forced to go overseas due to high taxation and Obamacare increasing insurance costs. Instead, he is using this as a weapon against cities who are dumping expensive pensions (example: LA's lifeguards who make $100K with pensions; or Chris Christie taking on teacher's unions). Everything he does has meaning. It is not only his ignorance on display, it is his arrogance and defiance.
Very simple Alinsky methods, really: speak to the masses with what they want to hear, as no one will check; and if said often enough his supporters will believe the story ("the end justifies any means"). "If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside." He simply does not care if he is factual or honest. In addition, he is "picking the target" (unemployment, poverty), "freezing" discussion as the MSM continues the propaganda, and "polarizing" the Democrat socialist agenda.
Keep in mind, as well, his "alligator and moat" comment yesterday served it's purpose to "ridicule" the Republicans and hope for a response from conservatives and the Tea Party.
"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." Dear Leader has these memorized.
One of Alinsky's rules, however, seems to be forgotten by the Community-Organizer-in-Chief:"A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag" (see: trotting out the macerated corpse of Osama every single day).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI've found it useful to simply take whatever Obama says as the opposite of the truth. 99% of the time this simple rule works.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEllen is correct. The total number of 22 million is all levels. Fed employment is 2 - 3 million:
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What do you think of this:
Layoffs and Discharges: Federal
Layoffs and Discharges: Federal in the United States was last reported at 238.00 Level, according to the US Federal Reserve. Layoffs and Discharges: Federal averaged 15.8348 Level since its inception reaching an historical high of 238.0000 Level and a record low of 5.0000 Level. This page includes an historical data chart for Layoffs and Discharges: Federal in the United States of America.
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"Epically" wrong is more like, "There are WMD in Iraq."
I have a feeling that Obama was taking into account the jobs that public sector employees would not have had save the stimulus, but we shall see. He could be very, very wrong on this. The truth will come out. Rest assured -- it will be picked up by Fox and then CNN and MSNBC will have to probe it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis type of outright lie is why Obama has a good chance of winning a second term. Nobody at CBSABCNBCNYT Wash Post, etc will say that Obama blatantly lied.
The "mainstream" media will simply just repeat the lie via the soundbite again and again. Now the power of the "mainstream" media has diminished, but they have become even more openly left-wing in the process.
This is the first of many lies Obama will be able to tell ("Republicans want to kill senior citizens") and not get called on it by the fawning press that is part of his entourage.
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