A New York Times staff editorial today presents the dubious argument that President Obama has done everything necessary, and has succeeded, in creating a jobiferous economic recovery, though he’d have done better had it not been for “obstructionist Republican politics.” This rests on their contention that:
On the campaign trail, President Obama has explained correctly that recoveries from financial crashes are tortured affairs . . . . It’s also worth noting that job growth in the current recovery has actually outpaced the job growth following the Bush-era recession in 2001. The recovery is not unusually weak; what is atypical is the length and severity of the recession that Mr. Obama inherited.
Unfortunately, while the first point is correct, the latter two assertions are manifestly not. Job growth has been slightly slower than what it was in the 2000s Bush recovery, and, in terms of jobs, this recovery is quite clearly “unusually weak.” See for yourself; job growth has been slower than essentially any recovery in the last half-century:
As Yuval Levin observed about the Times ed board’s ludicrous description of the Supreme Court’s being composed of “moderate liberals” and “conservatives,” it’s hard to believe these people read their own editorials — which would explain why they’re not fact-checking them, either.